Recent American and English research finds that
teacher bonus payments have no effect on student
achievement, or worse, a negative effect.

19

Schools lose as coaches dropped

WA

Source: GAO.gov, National Journal,
State Net, lexisnexis.com

MT

OR
ID

ND

WY
CO

KS

TX

HI

States that have introduced legislation this session
that would restrict collective bargaining

Your membership can be affected by any changes to
your employment.
If you have moved house or work location, changed your
hours, retired, resigned or picked up a contract, you must
let us know so that we can ensure your membership is
up-to-date and your fees are correct.

Baillieu replies at last
The Premier has responded to the AEU's demands
by calling for greater productivity from teachers.

P

REMIER Ted Baillieu has replied
The Premier concluded: “Our
the counter-log before negotiations
• Premier Baillieu reneging on his
to the AEU March Council decision Government undertakes to negotiate
can begin.
election campaign commitment
concerning his backflip on teacher pay. with all parties in good faith to reach
Pre-negotiation discussions will
to make Victorian teachers the
The Council resolution called on the
an enterprise agreement which is fair
commence in the week beginning
highest paid in Australia.
Premier to:
to teachers, financially r­ esponsible
June 20.
Equal pay rally
• Honour the Coalition election
and which is in the interests of
Thousands of community sector
Make ’em accountable
policy on teacher pay
Victorian students and families.”
workers (including AEU Disability
When visiting schools, Coalition
• Enter into good faith
Good faith negotiations are
members) took to the streets on
politicians including Minister Peter Hall
­negotiations on our log
­impossible in the context of the
June 8 to send a clear message to
have been greeted by strategically
of claims served on the
parameters set by the Premier.
the Victorian Government: “Pay up.”
Government last December
We are the lowest funded education placed placards and AEU members
The rally followed an interim
dressed in red.
• Meet the AEU.
system in the nation and the state
decision by Fair Work Australia (FWA)
Mr Hall met AEU reps during his
His letter started well: “Our
budget requires a further $481m of
that accepted workers in the sector
visit to Korumburra Secondary College
Government recognises the vital role
cuts to the education budget (which
were low paid, in part based on
and heard
members’ concerns PROVIDERS
first
teachers play in the learning and
cannot count as productivity).
AEU
PREFERRED
gender. They are now taking evidence
development of young Victorians.
More than 90% of school budgets hand (see article page 5).
as to what pay increases should be
All sub-branches are urged to
I firmly believe Victorian teachers
are spent on salaries. Significant
awarded.
ensure Coalition politicians understand
should be acknowledged and
“productivity” for pay increases can
The Baillieu Government promised
our concerns about:
rewarded for the important work that
only be achieved by cutting staff.
during its election campaign last year
• The State Budget’s cuts to
they perform in our community.”
The Premier did not respond to our
that they would fund any pay increase
public education funding of
But he then went on to say: “There request for a meeting.
awarded by FWA. They have since
$481m over four years
is no limit on wage outcomes above
At the time of writing, no date has
reneged, saying any increase may
• The increase in funding to
2.5 per cent provided bankable
been set for the start of negotiations.
have to be supplemented by reducprivate schools of $240m over
productivity savings are identified and They were due to start in March.
tions in services or staff (see article
Alan
Cooper,
Geoff
Allen
&
Staff
the same period
delivered to offset the increase.”
However, we have been told that
page 12). ◆
• The loss of 310 specialists,
In other
words,Stwe
mustRoad,
provide
Level
3/432
Kilda
Melbournea proposal
3004 for the Department’s
is the AEU’s preferred provider
of financial
andlearning
retirement planning
teaching
and
and services to members.
dollar-for-dollar
for any
counter-log is Retirement
soon to Victoria
be considered
Visit us atsavings
www.retirevic.com.au
Retirement Victoria Pty Ltd is an authorised representative of Millennium3 Financial Services Pty Lts AFSL 244252
Ultranet
coaches
at
year’s
end
increase above 2.5%.
by Cabinet. Cabinet has to approve
AEU Vic branch president

TO RETIRE SUCCESSFULLY YOU
NEED THE BEST ADVICE

APPOINTMENTS (03) 9820 8088

AEU PREFERRED PROVIDERS
SEMINARS 2011

Retirement Victoria will hold the following seminars at the AEU building, 112 Trenerry Crescent, Abbotsford
on the following dates:
Tuesday 5 July
at 10am (holidays)
Saturday 20 August
at 10am — Retirement seminar
Saturday 17 September at 10am — Aged care seminar
Tuesday 27 September at 10am — Retirement seminar (holidays)
Saturday 12 November at 10am — Retirement seminar

Book online at www.aeuvic.asn.au/calendar and click on date and event.
Members will have noticed that the State Super Fund (ESSS) has changed the format and content of its annual
member statements. Whereas the previous format was clear and informative the new approach is precisely the
opposite. A foreign language! Retirement Victoria offers a free translation service at your first appointment along
with a wide ranging discussion on the best way to attain your retirement objectives.

letters
Letters from members are welcome. Send to: AEU News, PO Box 363, Abbotsford, 3067,
fax (03) 9415 8975 or email aeunews@aeuvic.asn.au. Letters should be no more than
250 words and must include name, workplace and contact details of the writer. Letters may be
edited for space and clarity. Next deadline: 27 July, 2011.

Cut ties to Work Partners
I WAS shocked to read in The Australian (May 21)
that the AEU had been outsourcing recruitment to
a company called Work Partners. It’s bad enough
that the union has been outsourcing this important
role but now that Work Partners has been found
to be underpaying staff entitlements and looking
to reduce wage costs by moving jobs offshore, it is
an excellent opportunity for the AEU to cut ties and
bring recruitment back in-house.
Before moving to Victoria and joining the AEU,
I taught in Queensland where the Queensland
Teachers’ Union organisers visited schools to sign
up new members. Membership coverage of public
school teachers is above 95% in Queensland.
The QTU organisers were much more integrated in the running of the union and could wage
a much more convincing, informed argument for
teachers to join. In addition, they could defend
the union’s past political decisions to teachers

An Access Ministry teacher writes
WHAT place does the AEU have in
telling state schools what they can and
cannot do?
I am a kindergarten teacher; I also
teach Christian religious education
(CRE) to Grade 2 at Malvern Central
School. I found the articles in the last
AEU News (“Message to Ministry:
No Access”, “Church and State”,
AEU News, May) extremely disappointing, misleading and inaccurate.
Firstly, they affirmed that “secular
state schools are no place for compulsory religious lessons”. However it is
not compulsory for students to attend
the classes.
In my Access Ministries training
(which is compulsory), it was made
quite clear that we are not to proselytise. The lessons and booklets are
based on bible stories about God’s
love for all, but their main focus is that
God wants everyone to be loving, kind,
helpful, honest, caring and thoughtful
towards others.
Under no circumstance would I or
any other CRE teacher I work with tell
a child “they will not go to Heaven if
they do not believe in God”.
I have spoken to parents who

4

aeu news | june 2011

who brought these up as reasons not to join. It
is extremely important that a recruiter is able to
make these arguments to teachers.
This situation is in stark contrast to my encounters with the membership officers in Victoria who
seem to use the union’s retail discounts as their
main selling point; one of them even told me he
didn’t know much about the political side of the
union because it was separate to his area!
It’s time for the AEU to cut ties with Work
Partners, stop wasting money on ineffective membership officers and recruit more
AEU-employed organisers in their place.
— Rebecca Leeks
Brentwood SC

Branch secretary Brian Henderson responds:
The AEU has been using Work Partners to recruit
since 2007, as has been reported to Branch

send their children to CRE and they
want their children to learn the Bible
stories.
Children who do not attend CRE
are supervised by teachers in another
classroom and do revision, but not
new work. They do not sit at the back
of CRE classes or in hallways doing
nothing.
Just as the AEU had no place telling
its members who to vote for in the last
state election, it is not in the AEU’s
charter to tell state schools what they
can and cannot do in regards to CRE.
—Vicki Moore
Caulfield PS Early Childhood Centre
Contempt of course
IF TEACHERS were committed to their
profession, they would have no trouble
at all in defeating the unprofessional
performance bonus system being
offered to them (“No merit in performance pay”, AEU News, May).
All they need to do is en masse
treat the offer with the contempt it
deserves and refuse to take part, as
I did 14 years ago when performance
bonuses were introduced to Victoria.
Sadly, I was the only leading
teacher I knew of at the time who

Council and in AEU News. Traditional recruitment
through organisers, sub-branch reps and online
continues and represents 50% of new members.
Queensland has a different industrial relations
system; QTU is given a list of all teachers and
their locations. We in Victoria are not given this
information. QTU has also used Work Partners to
recruit in TAFE.
Work Partners has made an agreement with
the NUW, the union representing its employees, to
cover all the issues raised in The Australian. No
jobs will be moved offshore. Our branch is one of
the fastest growing unions in Australia, recently
overtaking the QTU as the second largest branch
of the AEU. I can assure Rebecca that this form
of specialised recruiting is not only cost-effective,
but also vitally necessary with the impending EBA
negotiations. Research shows that the unions with
the highest density achieve the best bargaining
outcomes for members. ◆

took this stance. Maybe professional
solidarity is better nowadays, though I
suspect that teachers will knock each
other over in the rush for their 30
pieces of bronze.
— Chris Curtis
Hurstbridge
What was he thinking?
WHAT happened the day that Andrew
Cassidy wrote his absurd article, “Time
to get organised” (AEU News, May)?
Andrew must have forgotten that
his role, presumably, is to write articles
in the interests of new teachers who
are AEU members and instead thought
… that he had become an employee
of VIT.
In addition to trying to survive
their first year of teaching, graduate
teachers have additional burdens
placed on them by VIT to achieve their
accreditation. Apparently it wasn’t
enough to get a B.Ed or another
degree combined with a Dip Ed and
then be deemed by the school that
selected them that they are worthy
to teach.
The fact that the AEU chose not to
represent the views of the majority
of its members and quietly sat back

and watched while the VIT came into
existence is astonishing.
Even more appalling is the $30 late
fee that the VIT imposes (what other
utility or organisation gets away with a
late fee of around 40% of the cost of
their invoice) to which Andrew simply
says, “don’t attract late charges”.
Instead of his patronising advice
that members get themselves a
display folder, Andrew should have
been writing about what he was going
to do to advocate for teachers to
lighten the load imposed on them by
the VIT, as regrettably the AEU was
asleep during VIT’s inception.
— Jeremy Linton
Seymour P–12 College
Deputy vice president (primary)
James Rankin responds:
Putting aside the larger debate about
the role and operations of the VIT, the
article written by our graduate teacher
organiser was simply practical advice
for graduates about the process of
teacher registration.
This is something members would
expect us to do, particularly where
there are serious consequences for
making a mistake. (see page 6)◆

news

Movement on
PAY CLAIM

Early steps in pay negotiations with the Government are finally under
way as school regeneration projects stall, reports Sian Watkins.

P

AY negotiations with the State
Government are finally about
to begin following the Education
Department’s recent submission to
Cabinet of its position on the AEU’s
log of claims.
Minister for the Teaching
Profession Peter Hall told the AEU
that negotiations would be conducted
with “genuine good will”. The department is yet to finalise its negotiating
team.
Pay negotiations with the
Government were meant to have
started by March.
Mr Hall told staff at Korumburra
Secondary College in South Gippsland
earlier this month that he would be a
“strong voice but not a lone voice” in
Cabinet in support of teachers’ pay
claims and that he could “well understand that teachers would find a 2.5%
pay offer unacceptable. However, it’s
not where you start in negotiations,
it’s where you finish.”
Pay rises of 10% a year, smaller
classes, reduced teaching loads and
contracts are included in the AEU’s
log of claims for a new agreement for
teachers and principals. A separate

log covers education support staff.
The teaching agreement expires in
December and the ES agreement
expires at the end of next March.
The teachers’ log calls for a new,
“highly accomplished” classification at
the top of the scale; a maximum class
size of 20 students in primary and
secondary, and a cap on face-to-face

projects are in limbo. Of these
projects, in which two or more schools
agreed to merge, 13 have received
no money and 25 have been partly
funded only.
The 38 regeneration projects,
started under the former Labor
government, require about $750
million to complete.

❛Most (of the promised upgrades) are in
Liberal or Coalition seats.❜
teaching hours of 20.5 hours a week
(primary) and 18 hours (secondary).
The ES log seeks a 10% pay rise, an
end to recall days, and for ES staff to
be included in the teachers’ laptop
leasing scheme.
Schools that recently protested
against the Coalition’s budget cuts in
public education –­ by wearing red and
using placards – included Camberwell
and Berwick Fields primary schools
and Korumburra Seconday College.
The slashing of Government
spending on school infrastructure in
last month’s budget means most of
the state’s 38 school regeneration

Under the regeneration program,
schools with falling enrolments,
poor results or old buildings were to
merge with neighbouring schools to
improve student performance. The
Labor government argued that by
amalgamating small schools, funding
could be rationalised to build new
classrooms and buildings and improve
the curriculum.
Some of these projects are
part-built and some have not started
even though many schools involved
have merged already in anticipation
of promised funding. School
operations have been greatly

disrupted as a result.
The Government said last month
it would focus its infrastructure
spending on schools it made commitments to during its election campaign
seven months ago. Analysis of this
list shows that most are in Liberal or
Coalition-held seats.
Education Minister Martin Dixon,
quoted in The Sunday Age this month,
said: “A lot of false expectations were
unfairly created among schools by the
previous Labor government as part
of its attempts to coerce schools to
merge.
“While we would have loved to
have been in a position to fund
more school upgrades in this year’s
budget, our ability to do so was
severely limited due to the Federal
Government’s decision to strip from
Victoria more than $2.5 billion in GST
revenue.’’
Almost 30 other schools received
no funding for upgrades promised by
the previous government, including
Greensborough Secondary College,
Elwood Secondary College and
Essendon Keilor College. ◆

We’re there for the AMWU

Assisting AEU Members for over 30 years
AdviceLine Injury Lawyers division can assist you – no win, no charge – with:

Holding Redlich also offers special arrangements for AEU members for:

•

Work injury compensation – physical and psychological injury

•

Employment and discrimination law

•

Road and transport accident injury compensation

•

Family law services

•

Medical negligence

•

Conveyancing

•

Asbestos injuries

•

Wills and estate planning

Contact us directly on 9321 9988 or 1300 MY INJURY or contact your AEU organiser for a referral.
Visit www.advicelineinjurylawyers.com.au or www.holdingredlich.com.au today.

www.aeuvic.asn.au

5

news

UNREGISTERED teachers beware
Failure to reregister with the VIT each year can prove costly,
stressful and disruptive.
Sian Watkins, AEU News

A

N unintended failure to renew her
VIT registration has had costly
and stressful consequences for a
country Victorian secondary teacher,
her school’s principal and the school’s
VCE students.
The teacher was one of 53
practising teachers found to be
unregistered during an audit by
the VIT and Education Department
earlier this term. Principals were
subsequently ordered to remove
them from teaching duties, resulting
in costly teacher replacements and
the unregistered teachers having
to explain and justify their failure to

renew their annual registration. The
St Arnaud Secondary College teacher,
a year-level coordinator and year 12
English teacher, unwittingly failed to
reregister with VIT after taking two
years’ leave without pay to teach in
Malawi. She returned to teaching
early last year and “what with the
business of returning to school, family
commitments, cultural readjustment,
she completely forgot about VIT,”
said St Arnaud principal Rebecca
Montgomery.
Although principals are required to
check that their teachers are registered, Ms Montgomery was appointed
principal early in term 1 this year.
What complicated the St Arnaud

REPS

E-BULLETIN

Your weekly Wednesday wrap

The AEU is now sending our school reps
a weekly Wednesday email wrap of union
news, campaigns, meetings and training.

teacher’s case was meeting the
VIT requirement that she provide a
criminal records check for the period
she was absent from teaching. Malawi
police said that to provide her with this
she needed to send her fingerprints
and $US50. Much time was then spent
trying to ascertain whether Victoria
Police could fingerprint non-suspects.
Ms Montgomery said the removal of
the senior teacher from the classroom
for about a month had costly, stressful
and distressing consequences for all
involved. Ms Montgomery, who faced
a backlash from parents “who thought
I had sacked her”, had to get two
experienced teachers “to step up” and
hire another teacher for an indefinite
period. “And teachers aren’t easy to
get hold of in rural areas. The few
CRTs in the area were already covering
people on long service leave and
annual leave.”
Needless to say, the Year 12s
were “very stressed” by their English
teacher’s absence.
Recent amendments to the
Education and Training Reform Act
give the VIT the power to initiate
inquiries into teachers rather than wait
for complaints. AEU vice president,
primary, Carolyn Clancy, says that
failure to register often occurs when
people change addresses, do not
understand VIT’s role or that strict
conditions apply to permission to
teach.
In most cases, unregistered
teachers who are moved to nonteaching duties continue to be paid
until their registration is sorted out. If
this period is protracted they may have
to take unpaid leave. ◆

Education
support
members hit
6100

T

HE number of education
support staff in the AEU has hit
6100, with membership tripling in
the past three years.
AEU organiser Kathryn Lewis
said the increase in ES membership
was heartening in that it put the
union in a stronger position this
year in seeking improved salaries
and conditions.
She said support staff shared
many issues and concerns with
their teacher colleagues, such as
career development, job security,
decent pay and the right to a fair
and equitable workplace.
AEU membership overall
increased by 266 members to
46,188 in the past month.
A range of training, networking
and support activities for ES
members will be held during
August. ES Month will again include
after-school coffee and cake
sessions for members at about 30
Victorian venues. Lewis said the
sessions (the union is shouting the
cakes and coffees) were organised
to help members network, meet
AEU organisers and communicate
concerns, raise issues and give
feedback.
Members can notify work organisers or the union directly if they
would like a venue in their area
included. Times and venues will be
posted on the AEU website closer
to August.
ES organiser Kathryn Lewis can
be contacted on (03) 9417 2822.◆

—Sian Watkins, AEU News

news
PHOTO: MARK JESSER, STUDENT AT EUROA SC

Countdown to New York

An award-winning maths teacher is headed for the
Big Apple following success with her numeracy
program at a Euroa school. Sian Watkins reports.

L

IKE many maths teachers, Euroa
Secondary College’s Michelle
Bootes dealt with low-performing
students by modifying class work.
But her involvement with a numeracy
program in 2008 changed the way
she and her colleagues taught maths,
and will take her to New York next year
to study low-SES students’ acquisition
of mathematical language.
Michelle is this year’s recipient of the
$50,000 Lindsay Thompson Fellowship
award for her work in coordinating the
successful changes to the teaching
of maths at Euroa. The prize money,
presented at the Education Excellence
awards last month, will cover the cost
of a replacement teacher while Michelle
spends six weeks researching her
project with Professor Orit Zaslavsky at
the University of New York.
Euroa Secondary College has a
low student family occupation (SFO)

rating, with 46% of its 360 students
coming from single-parent families.
In 2008, “our results were getting
worse,” Michelle says. At the start of
2009, 80% of Year 7 and 8 students
were performing below VELS level four
in maths (equivalent to Grades 3 and
4). Of these, 50% were performing
below VELS level 3.5 (Grade 5), with
many at only Grades 1 and 2 level.
Michelle, along with colleagues,
attended a four-day training course
on the developmental acquisition
of maths skills presented by Pam
Montgomery and Mark Waters, then
Hume region coaches.
Back in the classroom they used
online adaptive tests to find out what
students knew and didn’t know. They
then used those results to target
students performing below VELS level 4.
Adaptive tests were followed by the
release of teachers from classroom

teaching for interviews with individual
students. The interviews “told us
where kids were in the developmental
phase of maths acquisition — what
gaps and holes needed filling,”
Michelle explains.
After the interviews, individual
profiles were made for 80% of the
students in Years 7 and 8. Personal
learning teams created individual
folders for each student containing
specific task booklets used for practice
at the start of each maths class.
No textbooks were used and
learning tasks were selected from
a various sources, including online
resource maths300 and other
Curriculum Corporation material.
Activities such as card and dice games
were created to teach students more
flexible mental strategies.
By 2010, Euroa Secondary’s
middle students’ results had improved

so much they had reached the same
level as like schools. The school is
looking to maintain that result again
this year.
“What is pleasing is that more kids
are having success,” Michelle says.
“Many of the students had or have
very low confidence with maths. I’ve
videoed several students talking about
how they are doing now and they are
feeling much more confident — they
can see themselves getting better.
“At the same time we are still
teaching the curriculum. For example,
we teach area and perimeter, but
we might work in tens rather than
hundreds and thousands.”
Michelle was funded by the
DEECD to work as an in-house
numeracy coach for 2.5 days a week
in 2009–10. She says the changes
introduced to maths teaching at Euroa
SC have become self-sustaining. ◆

Money Magazine’s 2011 Credit Union of the Year
Our extremely satisﬁed customers beneﬁt from:
 Friendly and professional customer service.
 Fee free banking.
 Access to the largest ATM network in Australia.
 A range of highly competitive products and services.
Everyone is welcome to open an account with us and becoming a customer is easy. Open
an account online by visiting www.victeach.com.au or over the phone on 1300 654 822.
This information does not take into account your objectives, ﬁnancial situation or needs. Therefore you should ﬁrstly consider the appropriateness of this
information and refer to the Terms and Conditions or the relevant Product Disclosure Statements (PDS) before acquiring a product. These documents are
available at our branches or by contacting us on 1300 654 822.

www.aeuvic.asn.au

7

news

Bamboo palace of learning

A research scholarship took a country school principal to a much
greener place. He tells Sian Watkins his story.

I

N THE past six months principal Steve
Milverton has received 550 unsolicited applications for teaching jobs at his school. He was
lucky to get three or four when he advertised
vacant positions at his last school, Merbein West
Primary near Mildura.
It helps that his new school consists of
spectacular, bamboo structures on 23 acres of
warm, lush forest in Bali. The curriculum, based
on an international Cambridge framework in
grades K-12, including subjects such as green
studies. This subject evolves from nature study
to ecology and environmental studies.
Steve ended up in Bali after being awarded
an international research scholarship through
the government-funded high performing
principal’s program. He did his research in
South-East Asia in 2008. Before joining the
Green School this year he spent six months as a
director of a private school in Phnom Penh.
The Green School is in SibangKaja, in the
south of Bali. It has 250 students, a small
number of boarders, and 15 to 20% of its
students are Balinese scholarship recipients. The remainder come from all over the
world; many parents lured by the school’s

Rousseau-esqe appeal and its ethos of
preparing students to make a difference in the
world. The school, which opened in 2008, was
conceived two years earlier by John and Cynthia
Hardy, North Americans who have lived in Bali
for more than 30 years. They were inspired by
Alan Wagstaff’s Three Springs concept of an
educational village community.
The school is very green; students work
in the organic gardens and helped build the
biogas system, French photovoltaic solar cells
are arriving in August and a new turbine will
generate power from the Ayung River. There are
no big drink fridges or dimmies at lunch-time;
lunches are made from school-grown food. The
school’s central building is said to be the largest
bamboo structure in the world. It is remarkable
– two swirling vortexes that collide to create a
third, double vortex in the middle.
The school is doing “some pretty exciting
stuff”, says Milverton. “There’s no boundaries
as to what we do, try or develop. We’re not
sitting within the norm, operating within the
constraints of NAPLAN.”
Textbooks are used rarely and students
get their hands very dirty. Milverton says that

NLY a few people in our lives leave an indelible impression on us.
Marj Broadbent was one of them.
A woman of principle, conviction and a fierce sense of injustice, Marj was
brought up during the Depression and the horrors of the war years, worked in
shops and factories and only came to teaching in the late 1960s. In the teacher
shortages of that era, the principal of Jordonville Tech offered her a job, no
doubt on the force of her personality.
A single mother of three boys, she set about getting her teaching qualifications and settling into Ferntree Gully Tech where she worked for nearly 20 years.
She soon organised the sub-branch, was elected to TTUV council and then
to executive and vice-president. She was a leading participant in the landmark
equal pay case for teachers.
Her union and political credentials had long been established, not least by
her being sacked previously by Kodak for organising a strike.
As an active member of the Communist Party of Australia she travelled to
the USSR and China at the height of the Cold War, meeting both Khrushchev and
Mao long before these countries established diplomatic relations with the West.
The bureaucrats of the Education Department were never going to daunt her.

8

aeu news | june 2011

a PhD professor, Renee Levie, found recently
that the school, physically and philosophically
immersed in nature, was enhancing students’
ability to learn. “It’s hands-on, it’s authentic and
engaging.”
“We are often asked to share our experience
with educationalists and we are currently developing resources to assist the transformation of
mainstream schools,” says Milverton. “You don’t
need bamboo building to teach sustainability.”
Are similar schools possible in Victoria?
Milverton says “islands of innovation” exist
(with kitchen gardens and aquaponic systems,
for example) but a transformation of schools
requires more than passionate individuals.
He left Victoria “fed up with the lies, hollow
promises and buck-passing” in state education.
He would like to see schools get the automony
to plan and develop their own facilities and
programs so that “more truly sustainable and
holistic schools immerge in the near future”.
“The poor management of the latest BER
money in Victoria has been a wasted opportunity for many government schools,” he says.
“At least the private sector schools got to fully
benefit from the initiative.” ◆

In one memorable negotiating session in Minister
Lindsay Thompson’s office,
after a civilised discussion,
Marj looked at a valuable
artwork on the wall and
told the minister to “sell the
bloody painting” to find the
money for schools.
In her last teaching years
she became a member of
the Teacher Registration
Board in Spring Street. Often
after lunch she could not
be found as she had joined
a demonstration outside
Parliament. The cause
hardly mattered; anyone
“sticking it up the government” (any government)
was worthy of support.
As a teacher she was revered by her students. Affectionately know as
“Granny Sanger” because she would readily give her lunch away to a hungry
boy, she fought for the disadvantaged with energy and commitment. She would
also remove a shoe and dispatch it to those not paying attention in the back
row. She gave her all and expected the best of her students.
Marj never gave up the fight. She lived human rights, dignity and justice for
all. She is greatly missed. ◆

NLY a handful of employers
continue to hold out over pay rises
for members in disability day services
after pressure from the AEU.
Of 150 services, less than 20 have
yet to agree to pass on the money
they have already received from the
State Government.
AEU members in day services
joined a traffic-stopping rally for equal
pay on June 8, marching on Parliament
with community and social workers to

B

ELINDA Fillmore is our latest Rep
of the Month for her efforts in
staging a protest at a visit by Ted
Baillieu at short notice, the day after he
announced his backflip on teacher pay.
Belinda has been rep at Hawthorn
West Primary School since last
September and admits: “I was a bit
shy about it but I had somebody
supporting me, which was fantastic.”
She found the unexpected visit by
the Premier, who is also the school’s
local MP, “quite stressful to be honest.

Nominate your REP!

demand the State Government fund
the outcome of their pay case taken to
Fair Work Australia.
FWA recently delivered a historic
decision that workers in the sectors
are underpaid partly because the
work is predominantly carried out by
women and seen as “caring” work.
It is now considering submissions
from unions, employers and governments to determine how much of the
pay gap is for gender reasons (for
more, see pages 17, 18).
Employers and unions have

We had an inkling he was coming.
The announcement had been the
day before. It put a lot of noses out
of joint — it really upset a lot of
teachers. Some people felt we should
uninvite him.”
In the end, some colleagues lost
their nerve before Baillieu arrived, but
Belinda was determined to go on. The
protest was not without its amusing
side.
“We set up in front of the hall (a
church hall used by the school).

decided not to bargain for new agreements until the FWA case is settled.
In the interim, the AEU has sought an
agreement with employers, through
representative body VHIA, to give staff
a 3.25% pay rise from July 1 2010,
and from July 1 this year.
The union wrote earlier this year to
every day-service employer in Victoria
to demand they pass on the 3.25%,
and promising to name and shame
those who continued to hold out.
AEU deputy vice president TAP
Greg Barclay said: “Our letter-writing

A local man from the church came
over and was chastising us for sticking
things on the door and suddenly Ted
was there. It was all a whirlwind really.”
Belinda says she is glad other
schools are protesting. “The amount
of time that we put into our job is
enormous and I think a lot of us felt we
were going to be rewarded for that and
given just a small financial boost for
what we do. But it was all promises,
promises.” ◆

campaign has squeezed them so much
that we hardly have any employers
left in the metro region who haven’t
passed on the 3.25%.”
Minimum wage rise flows on
Meanwhile, Fair Work Australia (FWA)
has raised modern award rates by
3.4% from July 1. However, AEU
members who are paid award rates
may receive less or more, depending
on where they work.
Under complex transition arrangements from the old awards to the new
modern awards, some employees are
playing catch-up — and so will get
bigger pay rises — while others who
were on higher rates under the old
awards will get slightly less than 3.4%.
Almost all disability members
working in sheltered or supported
employment settings are paid the
award, as are some workers in day
services that have not made an
agreement with the AEU. In other day
services, the award has now exceeded
the agreement rate.
Details of the increases will be
posted on the AEU website — go to
www.aeuvic.asn.au/disability.
Some preschool teachers working
in childcare centres are also paid
award rates — the subject of a
separate AEU campaign (for more,
see page 11). ◆

Belinda Fillmore
Hawthorn West PS

Does your school or workplace AEU Rep deserve special recognition? Email aeunews@aeuvic.asn.au telling us who
you’re nominating and why. The Rep of the Month receives a limited edition AEU leather briefcase.

www.aeuvic.asn.au

9

news

M

ORE than 100 casual and
contract TAFE teachers
have joined the drive for more
secure employment. The AEU
will lodge applications on
their behalf en masse with
employers, asking for these
members to be converted to ongoing employment. The
union will challenge any TAFE colleges who unreasonably
refuse the request.
The AEU has launched a survey of sessional teachers
— employed by the hour — to learn more about their
job concerns. “The future of TAFE is only as secure as
the employment of its teachers,” says vice president TAP
Greg Barclay. “With over 70% of all teachers in TAFE
employed as either sessional or on fixed-term contracts,
it is crucial that we have as many members as possible
join our campaign to have TAFE teachers converted to
more secure employment.
Many are deterred from seeking better job security
in fear of losing existing work. The job security drive
marks the second anniversary of the TAFE agreement
giving casual and contract teachers new rights to request
greater job security. For many teachers, the new rights
kicked in on June 17. Casual teachers must have worked
in the same position for two years to qualify. Employers
cannot unreasonably refuse a request. ◆

Have your say in the
TAFE fees review

T

HE AEU has received almost 500 responses in less
than a fortnight to its call for information about fees
and charges at TAFE.
These responses will inform the AEU’s submission
to the Baillieu Government’s review of student fees
at TAFE, being conducted by the Essential Services
Commission.
The message from vice president TAP, Greg Barclay
is: “A big thanks to everyone who’s responded, and
keep ‘em coming.
“We need as many of your stories as possible to
send a clear message out. We are already getting an
impassioned response on workload issues and the
quality of teaching and learning at TAFE.”
Last year, the AEU campaigned successfully to
have concessions reintroduced for students under 25
studying at the diploma and advanced diploma levels.
“We must use the opportunity presented by this
review and push again to ensure that TAFE remains
accessible and affordable for all students,” says Barclay.
To complete the survey, visit
http://TAFEStudent.questionpro.com.
The AEU will finalise its submission by June 22.
To make a personal submission to the Essential
Services Commission go to vetreview@esc.vic.gov.
au. ◆

reg Barclay, the subject of a court victory over
the right of union reps to communicate with
members, has been elected unopposed as AEU
deputy vice president for TAFE and adult provision.
Barclay has been acting deputy VP since
February, appointed by AEU councillors following
the resignation of Mark Hyde from the role last
December. Hyde had been suffering ill health.
News that Barclay’s nomination had been
uncontested was welcomed by AEU branch
president Mary Bluett. “It’s a very strong endorsement of the job he’s being doing since he’s been
here. Now he can get on the job with confidence.”
Barclay said: “I’m really looking forward to the
next 18 months and the work we’ve got to do in
TAFE and disability services. We’ve got a casual
teachers conversion campaign to push ahead with
in TAFE, and we’ve got to address the workload
issue for TAFE teachers. We also need to begin
work soon on developing a log of claims for
2012.”
For disability members, the AEU will keep
pressuring the Baillieu Government to fund the
outcome of the equal pay case.
“And there is still work to be done on making
sure employers sign up to deliver the 3.25% pay
rise that members were due under our memorandum of understanding,” Barclay adds.
He hit headlines in February when he won a
landmark case in the Federal Court against his
employer, Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE.
In a majority decision, the court ruled that BRIT

director Louise Harvey had contravened the Fair
Work Act when she stood down Barclay over an
email he sent to AEU members at the institute. Dr
Harvey also initiated disciplinary proceedings.
Barclay had emailed members to remind them
of their responsibilities not to create false documentation and to contact the union for advice if
they felt pressured to do so. It followed concerns
raised with Barclay by a number of members.
The judges confirmed that the role of a union
officer included “advising members on workplace
issues ... and communicating with members about
issues of interest or concern to them.”
Legal firm Lander & Rogers is acting for
Bendigo TAFE, which has sought leave to appeal
to the High Court against the Federal Court
decision supporting the rights of employees to
engage in union activity at work.
The State Government is paying Bendigo
TAFE’s legal fees, which would likely amount to
hundreds of thousands of dollars so far.
State Workplace Relations Minister Richard
Dalla­-Riva said earlier this month that Victoria
supported Bendigo’s appeal because the full
Federal Court ruling had “significant implications
for all employees and employers”.
“The decision, as it stands, could unfairly apply
to innocent employees or employers in a wide
range of circumstances — not just those that
might involve union activities,” said Dalla­-Riva.
It is not known if the Government “supported”
Bendigo during the AEU’s appeal against an
earlier single-judge decision dismissing Barclay’s
adverse action claim against the TAFE. ◆

Preschool teachers say
Lighten the Load
Nic Barnard AEU News
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
ON June 10, a Full Bench of the
WA Industrial Relations Commission
dismissed the application for
registration by the WA Principals
Federation (WAPF). Its application
was also rejected by the full bench
in 2008.
The court found that a small
number of people from various
professional bodies had sought
to establish WAPF for industrial
purposes, but had not acted as
required by their own rules of
association.
WA's state school teacher's union
said: “It is another reminder of the
insidious efforts being advanced …
to drive wedges between members
of the teaching profession.”
NEW SOUTH WALES
Teachers joined other public sector
workers in a large rally outside the
NSW Parliament on June 15 opposing
the Government’s proposed industrial relations changes.
Delegates from metropolitan and
outlying schools attended the rally
despite heavy rain.
The NSW Government has
introduced a bill that, if passed,
would remove the rights of teachers
and other public-sector workers to
bargain over wages and conditions.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The Adelaide Advertiser has
reported on the problem of public
school teachers using their own
money to buy classroom supplies
(Teachers dipping into their own
pockets, June 13).
AEUSA president Correna
Haythorpe said there was “no
doubt” teachers were using their
own money to cover a shortfall in
funding.
SA Education Minister Jay
Weatherill said he was confident
schools “have the resources to
provide for common classroom
needs”. ◆

A

EU preschool members have
launched a campaign to force
governments to put their money where
their mouth is.
The early childhood sector is
undergoing significant change,
including the introduction of 15-hours’
universal preschool by 2013 and new
standards and curriculum, under an
agenda agreed to by state and federal
governments.
Much of the agenda has the
support of the sector, which believes
the critical importance of the early
years to children’s educational
outcomes is at last being taken
seriously.
But the changes are underfunded,
and preschools and early childhood
centres are struggling with staff
shortages and burnout that threaten
to undermine the proposals.

The AEU has launched its
Lighten the Load campaign with
a simple message to ministers:
the 3Rs of reform are resources,
resources, resources.
“Recognising the value of what
early childhood teachers do is all
well and good but it is fruitless
without the resources to enable
them to do it,” says vice president
(early childhood) Shayne Quinn.
“For many, workload is affecting
their decision to stay or leave the
profession. We need teachers in the
sector to stand together and argue
our case for fair working conditions.”
The campaign goes hand-in-hand
with the union’s Play Fair in Childcare
push for better pay and conditions for
teachers working in childcare centres.
That sector alone must find an extra
600 teachers within three years as
new regulations come into force; but
childcare centres pay well below the

rates for community and council-run
preschools. Some childcare teachers
are on much lower award rates.
Even in community and council
preschools, staff are feeling the
strain of preparing for the changes,
with endless consultations, planning
meetings and documents to draft.
The first step in the campaign is
a survey of workload issues. Early
childhood teachers and assistants can
fill out the survey at www.aeuvic.asn.
au/lighten_the_load. Survey findings
will help inform the campaign. ◆

AEU WINS FLEXIBILITY
over student-free days
T

he Education Department has announced that schools will be allowed to set the timing of student-free days from
next year, after lobbying by the AEU.
Only the first day — February 1 next year — will be fixed by the department as a student-free day to allow schools
to prepare for the arrival of students. Schools will be allowed to set the remaining three days of the year as they
choose “to meet local school needs”.
However, principals must notify their regional director of the chosen dates by the end of term 3 this year so that
parents get as much notice as possible.
AEU branch president Mary Bluett said: “This is a
huge win for schools, which will now be able to plan
pupil-free days flexibly to suit local needs.”
Seeking promotion or a
The Coalition Government had proposed that
classroom teaching position?
student-free days must be set either immediately before
or after a school holiday. This was dropped after the
Announcing our new
AEU raised concerns that it would make report-writing
days impossible and limit PD planning.
FOR CRITERIA WRITING AND INTERVIEW
Schools are asked to coordinate dates with other
Promotions Positions - $135
local schools to promote cooperative PD and planning
Classroom
Teaching Positions - $99
and to maximize use of resources.
The AEU wants additional student-free days to be
These detailed packages are specific to the Victorian
criteria. They will help you develop a dynamic application
introduced to allow schools to implement new governand prepare for a powerful interview performance!
ment initiatives.
Available for immediate download at
Sub-branches are advised to consider the timing of
www.teachers-resumes.com.au
next year’s student-free days as soon as possible in
Tel 0411245415 Email teachers-resumes@bigpond.com
light of the department’s decision. ◆

ONLINE PACKAGES

Teachers’ Professional Résumés – ABN 40 833 718 673

www.aeuvic.asn.au

11

feature

The day we went to

CANBERRA

In the biggest lobbying exercise in the AEU’s history, members from across Australia
descended on Canberra to meet their local MPs. Nic Barnard joined the party.

T

HREE AEU members are squeezed into the tiny,
warm Canberra office of Deakin MP Mike Symon.
An Australian flag fills a corner. As in every room on
Capital Hill, the TV is on, streaming proceedings in
the House of Representatives; Rob Oakeshott has
the floor.
The teacher, Seona Raeck, Tanya Burton (parent
and teacher) Assistant Principal Timothy Dalton,
are here to tell Symon their stories about the
­importance of the federal funding review. But the
bell could go at any minute to sound a division,
cutting short the meeting. The question is: how long
will Oakeshott talk? Long enough for the three to
get 40 minutes with their ALP member.
The meeting is part of a huge lobbying exercise
by the AEU to mark National Public Education Day.
About 100 teachers, principals and parents from
schools across Australia, including 15 from Victoria,
are in Canberra to meet their local MPs and set out
the urgency of fair funding. Over the day, almost 40
MPs and senators will have their ears bent.
With each MP visited by one teacher, one
principal and one parent, they are not there to go
into the details of funding formulas and SES data
but to tell their own story: the job their schools do,
the education their kids receive and what more they
could do if they only had the money.
This is the next step in the campaign around the
Gonski review of school funding. Submissions have
closed — more than 6000 of the 7200 received
came through the AEU’s campaign — but the work
goes on.
After all, Gonski’s recommendations will be only
the first part of reforming Australia’s corrupted
and inequitable funding system. The second part

12

aeu news | june 2011

will be making sure the Government acts on the
reforms. Hence these visits to some of Canberra’s
backbenchers.
Seona, a teacher at Dorset Primary School, is
telling Symon how some colleagues have taped
black cartridge paper over their classroom windows
so that students can see the new state-of-the-art
whiteboard. The school cannot afford blinds.
“I have $5 per student to spend (on classroom
supplies),” she says. “My integration aide is at
home sewing curtains because I’ve got a $5000
system that the kids can’t really see.”

❛There are great
schools in our area doing
some really fantastic things
but without the budget.❜
Timothy Dalton, an assistant principal at
Blackburn High School, picks up the theme of
facilities.
“It’s not just having buildings that are more than
50 years old. It’s having classrooms that can offer
the curriculum,” he says. “If we have four walls and
a door, we have (only) one style of teaching.”
With new facilities, teachers “can hopefully
address some of the learning issues these kids
have because they can adapt to the learning styles
these kids have.
“Buildings aren’t just about stopping the rain
dripping in; it’s about pedagogy.”
Their message is that public schools are doing

an incredible job helping students to achieve their
best, but that they could be doing so much more
with the right resources.
Chief among their concerns are the students with
behavioural issues, learning disabilities, fractured
home lives or other needs that require specialist
support.
Tanya Burton, a teacher and parent at
Whitehorse PS, tells Symon of two children in her
class from families with welfare issues.
The first has been able to get support and has
moved up to grade 3 with “a really good base of
academic and social skills. I could look at him and
confidently say he’s going to move on.
“The other boy has speech difficulties so he
struggles academically. His speech is directly related
to his reading and writing. His mum isn’t around,
dad can’t afford a speech therapist. Dad is relying
on the school to help this boy through.
“I look at this boy and because of his speech
problem that could be fixed in a short time, I believe
that by the time he gets to secondary school the
academic gap will be so great and so hard to fix,
and that’s where disengagement happens.
“If we had more funding for speech therapists
and support staff, that boy could be tested in
Grade 1, and his future could be very different.”
Symon seems receptive and agrees to meet the
group again in August. The verdict afterwards is
that he’s on the right page.
On another corridor, three members are meeting
Adam Bandt, the newly elected Greens MP for
Melbourne. The Greens would seem natural sympathisers with public education — but how high is
➠ continued on page 14

EDERAL Education Minister Peter Garrett
addressed a reception at Parliament House for
the hundred or so teachers, principals and parents
who, along with AEU officials, visited Canberra last
month to talk to politicians about the urgent funding
needs of government schools.
Held on the eve of National Public Education Day,
about 20 Liberal, Labor and Green MPs and a few
parliamentary staffers also attended the event.
AEU national president Angel Gavrielatos opened

proceedings by celebrating the “great Australian
success story” of public education, and asking
the Federal Government to accept that, “in order
to ensure excellence and equity for all, we need a
better deal for public schools”.
He said the Gonski review represented “an
opportunity for the Labor Government to bring
about a historic change through the introduction of
a new funding system that better meets the needs
of every child”.
Garrett thanked the AEU for its “continuing
efforts on behalf of its members, who remain

IN THEIR OWN

Peter Garrett

the backbone of our nation’s public schools. The
success of Australian education is predicated
on the existence of strong, vibrant, high-quality
public schools,” he said, adding that the Gillard
Government would support parents’ choice of
school, whether public, independent or private,
with continued investment.
“I want to end the decades’ long school funding
war — created by the Coalition — and find a
solution that is fair, equitable and transparent,”
he said. ◆

words

Fundraising fatigue

“I

Euan Morton

Falling through the cracks

“I

TOOK a Year 9 extra last week. The biggest troublemaker in the class,
a boy — I really like him, he’s one of those real characters, always in
trouble —
I spent the whole class with him. He didn’t know his 2x2 table.
“He’s got a fundamental numeracy problem but his IQ is enough that he
doesn’t get any funding.
“One of the common expressions we use is that these kids fall through the
cracks. But he hasn’t fallen through the cracks. We know he’s got a problem
and we try to devote as much time and effort to him as we can, but being
equitable to the whole class, it’s not enough.” ◆
— Euan Morton Collingwood College teacher

T’S gone beyond the role of teachers’ job descriptions. But we have
teachers putting all this extra time and effort into doing that. There
are programs that we wouldn’t be able to offer if the fundraising doesn’t
happen.
“We have the Birregurra festival. That’s a whole weekend which is
exhausting for teachers but it’s the only way we can get outside money
coming into our community, because otherwise we’re always asking our
parents for money.
“But there are other small rural schools that don’t have a Birregurra
festival. They don’t have access to any external fundraising.” ◆

— Mary Hutchinson Birregurra PS principal

“I

T’S shocking. The amount of pressure put on you from the school to
go to the fetes. It’s almost relentless. (But) they make enough money
to pay for someone’s salary. If they don’t make the money at the fete, they
can’t hire that person.
“You feel obliged all the time. And you already give money to the school for
the building fund, for the library fund …” ◆

—Steve Hodder Melbourne parent

www.aeuvic.asn.au

13

feature
➠ continued from page 12
the issue on their agenda? If funding
reforms hit rocky water, will they use
their numbers to push them through?
Steve Hodder is a teacher in
Whittlesea and a parent with a
daughter at primary school in Bandt’s
electorate. He talks movingly of her
problems with literacy.
“It’s taken her three years to get
into a program. It was almost too late.
And the reason was that there were
other students with higher needs.
And there’s only one teacher with the
training. Staff don’t have the training
to diagnose or deal with learning
disabilities or disorders.
“It takes so long to qualify and
the hoops you have to jump through
to get the resources — you feel
like giving up. Now she’s been in
the program for six months, we can
see significant improvements in her
reading and writing so it’s all been
worth it, but it nearly didn’t happen.”

At Fitzroy High School, assistant
principal Fran Mullins is overseeing
individual learning plans for Year 7
students. The program is producing
strong results, but at a cost.
“Our Year 7 teachers are doing
an amazing job to focus on these
children and personalise the
programs and improve engagement,”
she tells Bandt. “With the individual
plans we work out who needs that
extra support but also link kids with
their passions. The bottom line is
student engagement.
“We’ve probably had more than
the average number of graduate
teachers coming through, and three
or four years down the track, they’re
asking for a year’s leave because
they’re working 50 hours a week plus.
“There are great schools in our
area doing some really fantastic
things but without the budget … the
pay-off is seeing the improvement in

the kids and that’s wonderful but it’s
got to be a sustainable model.”
Bandt is another receptive
listener. The third member of the
group, teacher Euan Morton from
Collingwood College, comes away with
a promise that the MP will visit his
school. Later, in the Parliament House
café, he explains what he believes
any MP would see if they spent 20
minutes in a government school
classroom — and sums up the whole
message of the day.
“I think they’d see an

extraordinary difference in behaviour
(compared with a private school), but
they’d also see how passionate public
educators can be about their content,
their students and about education in
general.
“Those of us who work in public
education, we care about our kids, we
care about our subject and we care
about our content. Not to say that
private schools don’t, but I’ve made a
choice to work in public education and
I believe in it.” ◆

words
L-R: Angela Patten with
Laura Smythe MP

Seona Raeck

Disengaged students

Still waiting for support

“W

“T

E’RE a high-level VET and VCAL provider but it’s underfunded and we
don’t have enough places for the kids that want to take the course.
It’s very staff intensive — two staff for every class. We have kids on a
waiting list but they really should be in there.
“We have a lot of disengaged kids, chronic school refusers, kids consistently out of class because their behaviour can’t be managed. They’re at
serious risk of not finishing their education and leaving very early.
“We currently have a kid who started midway through the first term and
couldn’t get on a program straight away. He’s got very serious mental health
issues. School is the only support he has. If we lose him to school [as a
school refuser] it has very dire consequences for a kid like that”. ◆
— Angela Patten Berwick SC teacher

14

aeu news | june 2011

HOSE kids that need extra support — speech therapists,
psychologists, guidance officers: the reality is we’ve got a whole
stack of kids that need that help but aren’t getting it.
“We’ve got a little boy in my grade, Year 6, he’s a repeater. He’s
struggling. We’ve had him for 18 months and he’s now just getting to
the top of the (waiting) list for his speech. It’s something his mum and
dad can’t afford to provide so we’re doing the best at school.
“We have a massive turnover of staff, so there’s no continuity …
This little boy is doing his third getting-to-know-you session.” ◆

— Seona Raeck Dorset PS teacher

Paul Decis sees a bit of himself in the
rough diamonds he teaches. He tells
Sian Watkins what made him leave a
comfy life in construction.

P

AUL Decis used to work hard and make lots of
money. Now he works hard, earns little, and
guffawing 14-year-old boys go close to giving him
one-fingered salutes as they pass.
“When they get me in a headlock then I know
I’ll have made a difference,” says Paul, a former
building and construction manager who is now a
second-year graduate teacher of maths and PE at
Staughton College in Melton South.
Last year he was a project manager with the
Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery
Authority. Before that he was facilities manager with
Epworth Healthcare and before that spent 14 years
with the Melbourne City Council in its infrastructure
department.
He started his four-year Bachelor of Education
degree at Ballarat (which he combined with building
jobs to earn money) 12 years ago after talking to
his mentor about the direction his life should take.
His mentor was Basil Shanahan, a former principal
at Footscray High who taught Paul at Maribyrnong
High.
Basil asked Paul: “What did you want to do when
you left school?” Paul: “PE teaching”. Paul and
Basil, now 76 and retired, are in touch to this day.
“I got bored easily at school,” says Paul. “All I
wanted to do was play sport.”
Nevertheless the teachers at Maribyrnong in
the early 1980s, working with rough, tough kids
and refugee children, were inspiring,” he says.
“Teachers were your role models then.”
After finishing his teaching degree Paul
completed post-graduate study in business leadership and project management before returning to
building work for financial reasons.
Last year he was offered a role overseeing BER
projects but says: “I’d had enough and wasn’t
enjoying it.” Direct, forthright Paul would not be well
suited to slow-moving projects and departmental
politics.
So how does he find teaching? “It’s been a
huge learning curve — it’s incredibly challenging.
You’ve got 25 kids in front of you and how many
learning styles are there again? It reminds me of
that Forrest Gump quote — ‘Life is like a box of
chocolates.’ You never know what you’re going

to get when you turn up each day. What he likes
is developing relationships with his students and
creating opportunities to have a positive influence
on them. “The camaraderie in teaching is amazing.
We’re all passionate about the same thing,”
Paul says.
What he seeks for his students he compares with
a golf lesson. “If you have a 45-minute golf lesson
you usually come away remembering two things. If
one or two really important things sunk in with the
kids I teach, I’d be happy.”
A wealthy newspaper columnist recently
criticised Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys for its “appalling

language’’, “wholly dysfunctional families” and
sexual crudities but Paul, working with similar boys
every day and fond of them to boot, thinks the show
is “hilarious. All the teachers are watching it.”
One of four boys raised in Footscray with a
father who drank too much, Paul identifies with
those students at Staughton College who are from
similar tough, low-income backgrounds.
“I’m from Footscray — I don’t give a rats about
status.” His mother taught him that “class isn’t
money. She knew plenty of people that had money
but she said class is how you treat people.” ◆

Sian and Sharon — AEU’s newest staff members

T

HE AEU has two new
staff members —
Sian Watkins in
Abbotsford and Sharon
Cain in Bendigo.
You will have noticed
a new name gracing the
Sian Watkins
pages of the AEU News,
with Sian Watkins bringing her intrepid style to the
role of AEU journalist.
Sian took a redundancy from The Age in 2008,
where she had spent almost 25 years, to “give
teaching a go — something I’d contemplated after
leaving high school”.
Following a DipEd Secondary at La Trobe in
2009, she taught at two high schools on six-month
contracts last year.
“I’ve never worked so hard in my life,” says Sian.
“I veered between frustration, exhilaration and
stunned fascination.
“I cried only once,” she adds. “And it was not
after a very naughty boy threw a basketball at my
face, or after a far less naughty youth asked me if I
was a ‘leso’ (given my new, short haircut).”
Sian says she is passionate about the social and
economic importance of a well-funded, highly valued
public education system.
“My teaching experience, though limited, gave me
valuable insights into the difficulties that teachers
face and the conditions and lack of resources

that they and students
put up with. The dearth
of permanent teaching
positions is also a significant problem for students
and the profession.
“I aim to clearly
Sharon Cain
and fairly articulate the
problems and issues in public education to benefit
AEU members and, hopefully, public education
generally.”
Meanwhile, in Bendigo, Sharon Cain has taken
over from long-term secretary Barb Cuffley.
Born and bred in Geelong, two-and-a-half years
ago Sharon was looking for a lifestyle change and
chose Bendigo as her new home.
“I love it up here,” she says. “It’s fabulous. It’s
half the size of Geelong, but has everything I need.
And it’s so pretty at this time of year.”
Sharon was looking for two things in a new job:
a change in direction and a way of helping others.
She says the AEU position seemed like the perfect
solution.
“I wanted to feel part of an organisation that
was giving back and offering support to people.
My previous job didn’t have much face-to-face
contact, so I am looking forward to that.”
Sharon is available to assist members with
administrative enquiries, union membership information and sub-branch administration as required. ◆

www.aeuvic.asn.au

15

profile

BUILDING
futures

feature

THEY WORK
HARD

for the money

16

aeu news | june 2011

feature

Disability workers came by the busload
to bring Melbourne to a standstill in the
most important rally yet for equal pay.
Sian Watkins reports.

A

EU members were among
thousands of disability and
community workers who marched
through central Melbourne earlier this
month as part of a national day of
action for equal pay.
Zelda D'Aprano, a former factory
worker who twice chained herself to
Commonwealth buildings in 1969 in
protest against pay discrimination
against women, spoke to the crowd
outside Trades Hall before it marched
to State Parliament.
“Don’t ever think that women’s
labor is unimportant or lacking in
value,” Zelda, now 83, told the crowd,
which responded with huge cheers.
“It is an indictment of our society
that 42 years after Zelda took her
historic stand we are having to take
to the streets again today to ask for
equal pay for a fair day’s work,’’

AEU branch president Mary Bluett
told protestors.
Fair Work Australia last month
found that gender was an important
factor in explaining the big gap
between pay in the social and
community services sector and
comparable public-sector jobs.
Because work done in the community
and disability sector was regarded as
“caring” female work, the skills and
experience needed were undervalued,
it said.
Fair Work Australia will take
several months before deciding
the size of any pay increase to a
workforce of about 150,000 people,
mostly women. They are employed
by non-government groups such as
UnitingCare but most of the programs
are wholly or partly funded by
governments.

Protestors from across Victoria,
including Bendigo, Castlemaine,
Kyneton and Ballarat, attended the
rally and some disability centres
closed for the day to allow members
to attend.
The 5000-strong crowd walked
through Melbourne’s CBD and
workers and union organisers danced
on the steps of Parliament to Donna
Summer’s She Works Hard for the
Money.
Australian Services Union branch
secretary Lisa Darmanin said the
union’s case for higher wages was
“not about the cost of equal pay” but
“the cost of unequal pay”.
That cost is borne by women
such as Helen Stagg and Sue Cook,
who work for the Mawarra Centre
in Warragul, providing recreational
activities, jobs and training for
adults with physical and intellectual
disabilities.
Helen, with 25 years’ work experience in the sector, works full time and
earns $42,000 a year. Her colleague,
Sue, with 11 years’ experience, works
full time and earns $40,000.
Low pay, often challenging work

and the lack of job security (given
the sector’s dependence on annual
government funding) were responsible for the sector’s high staff
turnover, AEU members at the
rally said.
Mary Bluett told the rally that two
of the AEU’s witnesses at the Fair
Work inquiry into the sector have
since left the disability sector because
of low wages.
Helen and Sue said their job was
often highly satisfying but Victorian
Council of Social Service chief
executive Cath Smith told the crowd
that this should not compensate for
pay inequity.
“Don’t be misled by claims that
the world as we know it will implode
because of our pay claim,” Martin
said.
“Community-sector employees
work with the most vulnerable
people in Australia, in some of the
most ­challenging environments
and this should be recognised with
adequate remuneration — to do this,
­government support is critical.’’ ◆

“I have been refused bank loans
because of my wages.”
After 15 years, Robyn Gray still earns under $50,000.

A

FTER starting her working life in photography, Robyn Gray moved to
community services in 1996. She has worked for Inclusion Melbourne
(formerly Gawith Villa) in Armadale since 1999.
As a support coordinator, she oversees recreational activities and community
integration programs for groups and individuals and liaises with families and
residential carers.
Officially, Robyn works a 38-hour week but it’s more often 44 hours, with
extra after-work calls and paperwork completed in the evenings and on
weekends. She supervises 14 intellectually disabled people and seven support
workers.
Her job involves assessments and planning for clients and their families,
evaluating the progress of individuals, and finding educational, recreational
and work opportunities for them to give them a strong sense of belonging. She
must ensure all activities and programs comply with health, safety and budget
requirements.
Robyn earns $47,000 a year.
In her submission to the Fair Work Australia inquiry earlier this year, Robyn
detailed the onerous bureaucratic requirements and complexities of her job,
such as coordinating weekday and sometimes weekend activities and transport

for all her clients. And when things go wrong,
she is responsible.
“Sometimes I get a call to say that service
users have not turned up where they are meant
to be, which is very stressful. One time a client
was meant to access the community via public
transport and we were out till after midnight
looking for the client who did not turn up … because he had taken the wrong
bus. You put in all the safety factors that you can but occasionally things go
wrong.”
She told the inquiry that she may head to Queensland one day, where wages
in the sector are higher.
“I have been refused bank loans for houses because I could not demonstrate
a satisfactory capacity to repay the loans on my wage,” she wrote.
Her existing pay “does not reflect the level of responsibility that I have. My
workload is ridiculous and I can’t fit it all in within the hours of the job.”
Robyn has worked for most of the past 34 years. She has accumulated
$68,000 in superannuation, an anomaly that Fair Work Australia has agreed has
much to do with her gender. ◆
— Sian Watkins
www.aeuvic.asn.au

17

feature

Official: Gender to blame for low wages
David Bunn industrial officer

D

ISABILITY day service workers are a step closer
to gaining fair wages following the decision by
Fair Work Australia in the equal remuneration case
brought by unions. But there is still a way to go.
FWA, in a full bench decision issued on May
16, concluded that “employees in the [social and
community services] industry are predominantly
women and are generally remunerated at a level
below that of employees of state or local
governments who perform similar work”.
In general, employees were paid at the relevant
award rate or just above it, even where enterprise
agreements applied.
This is glaringly evident among disability day
service workers. Most are covered by agreements
but all but a handful of those agreements are long
past their expiry date. Even when they were current,
rates in the agreements were never more than 3%
above the award rates.

FWA said the fact that workers in the industry
were predominantly female was an important factor
in the emergence of the pay gap. The work was
perceived as “women’s work”.
FWA agreed that much of the work was “caring”
in nature, which disguised the level of skill and
experience it required; to that extent, the work was
undervalued for gender-based reasons.
Another factor was the low bargaining power of
workers because of the “feminised” nature of the
work and that it was carried out mainly by women.
The bench decided: “To the extent that the gap
is gender-based we should take action to correct it
if we can.”
It has now asked unions and others to help
decide how to put a figure on how much of the gap
is caused by gender. Further hearings will be held
in August.
The Australian Services Union has led the equal
pay case, supported by the AEU, other unions and
the ACTU. It was mounted under an improved equal

remuneration provision in the Fair Work Act, one
of the victories won in the union campaign against
WorkChoices.
The claim covers AEU Victorian members in
disability day services. Other parts of the disability
sector are not included in the present claim
because they are covered by different awards.
A number of employer groups have appeared
in the case and supported the union application,
while expressing concerns that government must
fund any outcome. AEU members and employers are
dependent on the Baillieu Government to fund any
pay increase that comes out of FWA’s deliberations.
Before the last election Premier Ted Baillieu
and his now Community Services Minister, Mary
Wooldridge, matched the Brumby Government’s
commitment to fund the full cost of any pay
increases involved.
However, the Government has since limited
that commitment to $50 million a year over four
years. ◆

Bosses’ message

TAFE teachers’ stories

T

C

HE rally heard a message of support from the chairs and treasurers of
community services, delivered by the Victorian Council of Social Services.
“We are volunteers; our employees are not,” the chairs and treasurers
said. “They should be paid fairly and equitably for the work they do. …
It’s time for government to stand up for workers that support the most
­vulnerable people in our community.” ◆

On the buses

C

HOCOLATES and chat helped
workers from rural disability
services brave the chill of an early
start on the bus to the Melbourne
rally.
Caroline Backman, who works in
a regional adult training and support
service, said it was a rare chance for
members from different organisations to catch up.
“We were all talking and
discussing different issues,”
she said.
“Don’t Ted Baillieu and the
Coalition say they want to do the
right thing by people with disabilities? How can they do that if they’re
not supporting the people that
support them?”
So strong was the cause that

18

aeu news | june 2011

management at a number of centres
supported staff in going to the rally.
Caroline’s service closed for the day.
“The commitment from management and my work colleagues to
support pay equity has been marvellous,” she said. “It’s an important
issue for all of us.
“I can only really afford to do this
job because my husband is the main
wage earner. I can do a job I enjoy
for minimum wage because I’ve got
that support.”
Parents and carers of her adult
clients with learning difficulties were
notified in advance of the closure.
Caroline said that if some had
not been able to make alternative
arrangements she would not have
attended the rally. “They are our first
priority.” ◆

OMMUNITY development studies
at TAFEs around the state
stopped for the day as teachers and
students attended the equal pay rally.
AEU member Paul O’Sullivan, one
of a dozen teachers from Kangan
Batman TAFE said: “We worked in the
sector before we began teaching. It’s
a great career but it’s hard work.
“Now it’s our role as teachers not
just to educate the students about
social justice but about the need for
them to stand up for their own rights
in this democratic country. If you
don’t, this is what happens.”
His colleague, Kerri Jackson, said
ultimately it was clients who suffered
because of the high turnover of
staff in community services, linked
to low pay.
“When you talk to consumers of

community services, one of their
major issues (is) getting consistency
of service,” Kerri said.
“We work specifically in the homelessness sector and when you’ve got
three or four workers in 12 months
to help you get on your feet, it’s
self-defeating.
“The bravery of having to talk to
a worker about your story and then
having to do that again, every couple
of months, is soul-destroying. It’s like
picking the scab off a wound.”
The fact that most case workers
are women also creates problems
for some clients who find it difficult to
talk about men’s issues.
“Our classes are 85-90%
females,” Paul said. “In some classes
there are no men. If there was fairer
pay we would get more males.” ◆

A student’s voice

“W

E’RE living on a student’s budget now and we shouldn’t be living on a
student’s budget once we start work.
I’ve been a client in the industry and I’ve since found out that some of the
people helping me out were eligible for the same benefits they were trying to
get me on.” ◆
— Vicky, VU TAFE community studies student

feature

Down a dark corridor

Teacher bonus payments have a long and ignoble history with one consistent feature:
they don’t work. Research officer John Graham examines the evidence.

T

HE Gillard Government’s determination to introduce performance
pay for Australian teachers is a case
of ideology triumphing over evidence.
Studies from the United States,
where this development (along with
the rest of the Federal Government’s
educational accountability agenda)
originated, have found little
evidence of positive outcomes from
­performance bonus schemes.
In this year’s budget, the Gillard
Government allocated $425 million by
2014–15 for what it calls “Rewards
for Great Teachers”. The money is to
pay for one-off performance bonuses
for “the top 10%” of teachers across
the country. The bonus will be worth
up to 10% of each teacher’s salary.
It is estimated that 25,000
teachers Australia-wide will receive a
bonus (and 225,000 will miss out).
The first bonus will be paid in 2014,
based on teacher performance in
2013. All teachers will be required
to participate in the performance
management system in order to sort
out the “top performers”.
The Government has asked the
Australian Institute of Teaching and
School Leadership (AITSL) to develop
the performance management system
— to be called the Australian Teacher
Performance Management Principles
and Procedures — that will be used
as the basis for payments.
A component of this system will
be an assessment of each teacher’s
contribution to the achievement of
their students.
Given the many statements
from the Prime Minister and the

extraordinary financial and political
students but were not eligible to
investment her government has made receive any bonuses. The study was
in My School, “student achievedesigned to test the rationale for
ment” will mean NAPLAN results. A
linking teacher bonuses to student
top 10% performance by a teacher
results: “If teachers know they will
will, therefore, mean their assessed
be rewarded for an increase in their
contribution to those results.
students’ test scores, will test scores
On the research evidence alone,
go up?”
such an approach is a waste of
The answer from the study was
money and a wasted opportunity to
“no”. There was no overall effect on
do something more constructive
student achievement by the “bonus
for the
teachers”
­profession,
compared with
such as
the control group.
❛ An English study
introducing
Two other
of performance pay
an improved
2010 studies of
career
performance pay,
also found a decline in
structure
in New York and
and a new
Chicago, found no
student achievement ❜
era in
evidence that the
professional
bonus payment
pay for teachers.
schemes raised student test scores in
Last September the most complete maths and English, or had any effect
and rigorous study of teacher
on teacher retention. The New York
performance pay in the US was
researchers concluded: “If anything,
released by the National Center on
student achievement declined.”
Performance Incentives at Nashville’s
Another recent study of performVanderbilt University, in conjunction
ance pay, in Houston, which used
with the Rand Corporation. It was
more than one form of student
funded by the US Department of
testing to assess teachers, found that
Education.
the assessment of teacher performResearchers analysed the effect on ance between 2007–10 differed
student achievement of performance
according to the reading test used
bonuses paid to Years 5–8 mathand was “highly variable from year
ematics teachers teaching in Nashville to year”.
public schools between 2007–09.
The researchers concluded: “In
The teachers were divided into two practice, many teachers cannot be
groups. In the first group, individual
statistically distinguished from the
teachers could earn up to $15,000
majority of their peers.”
a year in performance bonuses. In
An English study of performance
the second “control group”, teachers
pay also found a decline in student
taught the same courses and similar
achievement. Researchers from the

University of London analysed the
impact of teacher performance pay
on the achievement of students in the
Portuguese national exams over a
seven-year period. Teachers in those
parts of Portugal that did not have
a bonus scheme acted as a control
group.
The researchers found that “the
increased focus on individual teacher
performance caused a significant and
sizable relative decline in student
achievement, as measured by national
exams”.
They also found consistent
evidence of “grade inflation” in
school-level results of teachers under
the performance pay scheme.
Payment for results has a long
history of failure. Each time it regains
currency it runs into the same
problems — teaching to the test,
the displacement of other important
purposes and goals of education,
a lack of consensus about what
constitutes merit and how it should be
measured, and the inability to fairly
cater for all teachers at all levels in all
subjects and in all circumstances.
The recent research evidence
about payment by results is damning:
it indicates that it has no effect on
student achievement or a negative
effect.
Evidence-based policy, which
used to be in the mission statement
of every government across
Australia, should compel the Federal
Government to return to the drawing
board. Ignoring evidence leads only
to a dark corridor of ideology and
prejudice. ◆

www.aeuvic.asn.au

19

feature

SCHOOLS
LOSE
as coaches
dropped

School leaders challenge the Coalition Government’s verdict that literacy and numeracy
coaches have been ineffective. Sian Watkins reports.

T

HE State Government’s justification for
dismissing 200 literacy and numeracy coaches
at the end of the year has met with disappointment
and frustration among school leaders involved.
Education Minister Martin Dixon last month said
that, as part of education budget cuts, the coaches
would be axed because they had failed to achieve
improved NAPLAN literacy and numeracy scores in
the primary and secondary schools involved.
Wrong, says Blackburn High School assistant
principal Tim Dalton. His school’s NAPLAN maths
results did improve in the past two years with the
help of numeracy coach Catherine Mallis. And it
wasn’t just NAPLAN results that improved. “There
have been tangible improvements in teachers’
practice and in our curriculum,’’ he said.
Abbotsford Primary School principal Merridy
Patterson said that numeracy coach Kathryn
Patford had established a teaching and learning
foundation to build on, and the prospect of losing
her at the end of the year was disappointing.
Patford, a regional numeracy coach, worked with
staff on planning learning tasks and assessment,
clarifying the purpose of each lesson, and rigorous
identification of each student’s needs. School
money pays for a literacy coach one day a fortnight.
Patterson said that, as a single leader of a
98-student school (with no assistant principal or
leading teachers), it was difficult to find the time
and resources to provide coaching to help teachers
develop skills to improve student learning. Patford’s

20

aeu news | june 2011

focus on teaching and learning, and her mentoring
role with three graduate teachers in the school,
had been “invaluable”, Patterson said.
Catherine Mallis’ work at Blackburn High included
delivering information on innovative curriculums
to the school’s teaching and learning committee;

❛Tell me and I’ll forget
Show me and I may not
remember
Involve me and I’ll
understand.❜
observing teachers in the classroom and giving
feedback; overseeing a learning partners system,
in which teachers chose a learning partner and
selected an area of their practice they wanted
feedback on; and coaching teachers in effective
uses of open-plan classrooms.
“It’s appalling that her job is being swallowed
up,” Dalton said. “Staff don’t have time to
­investigate all the wonderful stuff that’s out there,
and this practice has made a difference for kids,
particularly in the way we cater for different learning
styles. Catherine also spent a lot of time helping
teachers with varying degrees of experience.”
Mallis disagrees “strongly” with Mr Dixon’s

justification for axing the coaching program. “Data
from several regions I’m aware of shows clearly the
positive effect the teaching and learning coaches
have had.”
“The benefits involve more than just NAPLAN
results,’’ she added. “I’ve worked with teams and
individuals to help teachers become more aware of
how they can change or improve their practices.
The effects of the teamwork, and working
collaboratively, have been really powerful. All the
teachers here have benefited from observation of
their teaching practice.”
Mallis says that every year the demands on
teachers increase. “They (the state) say they want
improvements in teaching and learning but schools
need support to do it.
“The teachers here work extraordinarily hard.
They are committed to the students and really
want to give, but you can’t just dump ideas into the
laps of people. If you want genuine innovation and
improvement in your teaching practice you have to
provide the time and the resources for people to
do it.”
A literacy and numeracy coach who wished to
remain anonymous said the coaching program
led to improved results and more engaged, better
behaved students.
She said regular, consistent coaching has been
far more effective than “filling up” tired teachers
with information at occasional, after-school PD
sessions. “Teachers take-up about 10% of the

feature

Loddon-Mallee schools
go it alone

PHOTO: NOEL BUTCHER

Catherine Mallis and Tim Dalton

S

information at these sessions, and implement about
10% of that in the classroom.”
She quoted the following proverb to support her
argument that every school needed a teaching and
learning coach.
Tell me and I’ll forget
Show me and I may not remember
Involve me and I’ll understand.
She received “fantastic” training to become a
teaching and learning coach and she laments the
dissipation of a “very professional and highly skilled
group of people in which much time and money was
invested”. “I feel very privileged to have been part
of the program.”
AEU President Mary Bluett said that, on a recent
trip to Warragul, two primary school teachers had
“waxed lyrical about the fantastic difference that a
numeracy coach had made in their schools”.
Teaching and learning coaches were introduced
by the former Labor Government in 2008. Members
of regional school improvement teams, they worked
in selected schools to improve students’ maths,
science and English by strengthening and improving
teachers’ knowledge, skills and use of ICT.
Mr Dixon said Labor never intended to continue
funding the coaches, but Labor MPs rejected this at
a government budget estimates committee meeting
last month.
Days after the Government said it would end
the coaches’ funding, Minister for the Teaching
Profession Peter Hall presented three schools with

CHOOLS In Victoria’s Loddon Mallee region will draw from their limited
budgets to continue the work of literacy and Ultranet coaches next year.
The schools have agreed to contribute $15 a student to raise half the
cost of the coaches and the rest will be covered by the region.
But Loddon-Mallee regional director Ron Lake says coaches will be hired
in school networks only where the funding shortfall is not too great. Two
networks will not get a literacy coach because of a $24,000 shortfall.
In a memo sent to principals on 16 June, Lake supports hiring literacy and
Ultranet coaches in the Goldfields, Macedon Ranges, Mallee, Bendigo and
Sunraysia networks; and an Ultranet coach in the Sandhurst and Swan Hill
networks.
Lake said although all schools in the Campaspe network wanted to employ
a literacy coach, he would not support it because the “knowledge base of
good literacy teaching is significantly more widespread and robust” than
teachers’ Ultranet knowledge”. Campaspe schools were not interested in
hiring an Ultranet coach.
In the Swan Hill network, all schools except three supported hiring a
literacy coach but Lake said in his memo that this would be undesirable
given a likely funding shortfall of $8780. In the Sandhurst network, all except
four schools supported hiring a literacy coach, but Lake said he would not
support this given a likely funding shortfall of $15,345.
There are 159 schools in the Loddon-Mallee region and 38,000 students
according to department figures. ◆

2011 Victorian Education Excellence awards for
“sustained numeracy improvement”.
A numeracy coach played a key role in the
project that led to Copperfield College, Taylors Lakes
Secondary College and Rosehill Secondary College
winning the outstanding school leadership team
award. The $20,000 award recognised the achievements in maths at the three schools, after principals
and teachers worked with a consultant and the
numeracy coach to improve their teaching.
Copperfield College principal Tony Simpson said
last month that the award highlighted the success

of the numeracy coaches. “The evidence in our
case is overwhelming,” Mr Simpson told The Age.
“I think it’s a great shame that the (teaching and
learning coaches) program is going to go into the
ether.”
In The Age report published on May 17, Rosehill
Secondary College principal Peter Rouse said
the numeracy improvement project had helped
teachers identify what students did not understand
in maths. “Textbook teaching is no longer sufficient
… we now have really in-depth teaching based on
students’ individual needs,” he said. ◆

Promises, promises

E

DUCATION Minister Martin Dixon, in an address to Parliament on May 31, said:
Over the last 10 years Victoria’s performance in literacy and numeracy has flat-lined.
In 2009, the Auditor-General said that despite over $1 billion having been spent on literacy and
numeracy programs there was little or no i­mprovement to be seen. … Under Labor we saw no real,
consistent or sustained improvement in literacy and numeracy.
Over the next four years this Government will be investing more than $740 million in literacy and
numeracy programs.
We will be spending $100 million on maths and science specialists. We’ll be handing out 400
scholarships to science graduates in an effort to increase the number of maths and science teachers
in Victorian schools.
We want to work together with the Federal Government. We want Victoria’s education system to be
the best performing system in the world. ◆

www.aeuvic.asn.au

21

international

WA

Saving
America’s
PUBLIC
SCHOOLS

ID

HILE several Republican state
governors watch their ratings slip
following their Goliathan struggle with
teachers’ unions in the US this year, it
remains moot whether nearly
75 years’ worth of work protecting
the way public-sector employees
negotiate their contracts can recover.
The recently elected Republican
governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker,
proposed and then passed a bill that
stripped public-sector employees of
most of their collective bargaining
rights and reduced their take-home
pay by about 8% — all in the name of
reconciling the state’s US$137 million
budget deficit.
Anticipating unrest, the Governor
threatened to bring out the National
Guard against protestors.
Restoring bargaining rights only
to law enforcement workers and firefighters, the state saw its remaining
public-sector employees — of whom
nearly 70,000 are teachers —
voicing their dissent.
Wisconsin was the first battleground, but by no means the last.
Later in March, newly-elected
Ohio Republican governor John
Kasich justified his support for the
dismantling of public-sector collective
bargaining by saying: “All this is rooted
in job creation.”
The notion that public-sector
pensions and salaries — not Lehman
Brothers or corporate tax cuts

A resurgent Republican
right is trying to pin the
US’s fiscal and educational
woes on teacher unions
and taking an axe to
teachers’ bargaining rights.
Sarah King Head
reports.

W

MT

OR
NV

Source: GAO.gov, National Journal,
State Net, lexisnexis.com

HI
States that have introduced legislation this session
that would restrict collective bargaining

States that allow collective bargaining
States that allow collective bargaining only for some public workers
States that don’t allow collective bargaining for any public workers

— were and are responsible salaries and benefits account for about
for the dire financial situation 30% of the general funds available to
of most American states
most states, it is not surprising that
has gained wide parlance in state legislatures looked here first.
recent months.
But, the question then becomes:
However, there is no
were restrictions on teachers’ collecevidence that collective
tive bargaining rights also necessary?
bargaining labour law
Only 12 states guarantee collective
reforms or union activities
bargaining to public-sector groups
can in any way be held
that include teachers. Twelve others
responsible for the collapse of deny this right to any public employee
state budgets.
— and 15 states this year alone have
Before the dust had settled
introduced legislation to restrict it.
in Wisconsin or Ohio, mostly
The reason seems rooted in the
Republican-led state governanxieties of policymakers and the
ments across the country — from
public about the poor performance
Washington to
of American
Maine to Florida
elementary schools
❛❛... there is no
— were on the
in international
starting blocks.
rankings. Recent
evidence that
Notably, while
OECD tests show
­collective ­bargaining that US students
not all states
historically have
continue to lag
or union activities
permitted collecbehind those
can in any way be
tive bargaining
in many other
for public-sector
held ­responsible for developed
employees, many
countries — even
the collapse of state though they receive
of those that have
are considering or
some of the
budgets.❜❜
have passed laws
biggest funding per
reducing union
capita.
arsenals.
Efforts to increase global competiNext on the hustings was Florida’s
tiveness have inspired successive
Rick Scott (R), who signed similar
federal administrations to focus on
legislation at the end of May. Most
student performance. President
recently, Tennessee added its
Barack Obama’s iteration has been
own law, replacing legally binding
the US$4.35bn Race to the Top
collective bargaining with a process
program, which seeks to enhance
euphemistically called “collaborative
and standardise the way education is
conferencing”.
delivered in US elementary schools.
Particular emphasis has been
Fiscal crisis or fig leaf?
placed on an external system for evalThe fiscal problems for American state uating teacher performance in relation
governments are real. In the first
to their students’ test results. Not only
10 months of the fiscal year, 23 states does this play to a myth that unreguwere forced to collect US$7.8 billion in lated, unionised workers perpetuate
forecast shortfalls. Since public-sector poor performance in students, it also

opens the floodgates for policies eerily
reminiscent of unchecked free market
economics.
No better is this seen than in
Microsoft boss Bill Gates’ public school
reform program. The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation supports a range of
measures including the replacement
of “failing” local schools with privately
run charter schools, standardised
testing and more control over evaluating and firing teachers.
Indeed, Gates and his educational reform counterpart, Eli Broad,
sponsored the critically acclaimed
but derisively one-sided documentary
Waiting for Superman (reviewed in
AEU News, April).
In spite of this and other rhetoric
to the contrary, the evidence reveals
a positive correlation between those
states that permit teacher unions and
better school performance.
But even without the facts and
figures, some sections of American
society are stopping to take stock
of the situation. They are offering
those checks and balances on which
America’s constitutional commitment
to accountability relies.
Thus, circuit judge Maryann Sumi
issued a stay on the Wisconsin Budget
Repair Bill in mid-March that has kept
the legislation in limbo (for the time
being). Similarly in Ohio, teachers’
unions have joined other labour
organisations and political advocates
to force a referendum challenging
Kasich’s bargaining law.
However the battle plays out,
one thing is clear: not all Americans
are prepared to throw public
education to the vicissitudes of free
market forces. ◆
Sarah King Head is a journalist specialising
in North American education.

Bring the house down
U

NION Shopper has long helped union members make savings on everything from fridges to cars. Now it can help you save money on the biggest
purchase of all — a house.
Union Shopper is working with CS Property Consultants to offer union
members free consultancy, advocacy and negotiation services — an average
service fee saving of $10,000.
CS Property Consultants acts as a buyer’s agent to help house-hunters make
the most informed decision when purchasing a property. The agency will help
buyers through the entire process, including property searching, detailed market
and investment analysis, contract negotiations and settlement support.
On average it will reduce the final purchase price by 10%.
Through Union Shopper, CS Property Consultants will:
• Waive the $550 appointment fee
• Waive the consultancy fee of 2% of the purchase price.
In order to receive this offer, members must contact CS Property Consultants
at least 24 hours before contacting the listing agent.
Union Shopper is a service available only to union members, using the
combined purchasing power of Australia’s 2 million-strong union movement to
secure lower prices and deals.
For more information go to www.csproperty.com.au/union.html or
check the Union Shopper website at www.unionshopper.com.au and follow
the links. ◆

Women’s FOCUS

Stephanie Massow North Geelong SC

Immersed and enlightened
An AEU rep gives an insight into the Anna
Stewart Memorial Program.

F

OR starters, you need to know who Anna Stewart was. She was a journalist
and active Victorian union official whose life tragically ended in 1983 when
she was 35.
She was a woman who fought for the rights of members of the unions she
was part of, and for the rights of all women workers. She drove a blue-collar
union campaign for maternity leave award provisions, fought for childcare
facilities in car plants‚ researched and argued work value cases‚ initiated
campaigns against sexual harassment that led to employers recognising it as
an industrial issue‚ and assisted with the ACTU maternity leave test case.
After all this she became a founding member of the ACTU women's
committee‚ established in 1977.
During commission hearings Anna would breastfeed her young son or seek
adjournments to do so. In her honour, the Anna Stewart Memorial Program
began in April 1984.
The program is a two-week immersion in trade unionism. Four days are
spent with like-minded women from a variety of blue and white-collar unions
at Victorian Trades Hall; the others are spent at a union of your choice. As an
active member of the AEU, I chose to spend them in Abbotsford.
I should explain what brings me here. I became a member of the AEU as
a student when a representative spoke to our B.Ed group. I became involved
in sub-branch meetings at my first workplace, and soon after starting at my
current school I was elected sub-branch president.
Being in the Barwon South Western region, I feel very comfortable calling
the AEU Geelong office. However, the role the union plays did not really
become clear until I experienced it first-hand.
A few weeks ago, if you had asked me why I was a member of the union,
I would have rambled on about being protected in an increasingly dangerous
profession, and maybe about looking out for the rights of school staff.
Now I feel much more passionate about this answer. Yes, the AEU protects
its members, but ultimately it goes far beyond this. The knowledge its organisers and employees possess about the agreements and rights of members is
commendable. There are no questions that cannot be answered by someone.
From media meetings with Mary Bluett, to meeting ES staff at a school with
ES organiser Kathryn Lewis, to time spent with the Membership Services Unit,
we were busy learning.
The political climate and recent budget announcements made this an
interesting time to be immersed in the union. I would like to thank all the staff
I met over the fortnight.
The strength of our
union can be attributed
to all these wonderful
men and women — and
of course to our evergrowing member base.
In the end, we are the
heart and soul, and we
can rally for the changes ASMP participants Helen Thomaidis, Williamstown PS
our education system
and Stephanie Massow, North Geelong SC
deserves. ◆

www.aeuvic.asn.au

23

inside the AEU

Member
BENEFITS

inside the AEU

2011

EVE

CALE NTS
NDA
R

AEU TRAINING & PD
Kim Daly and Rowena Matcott training officers

What do you want to know?

Events

_cover

.indd

2

Why attend an AEU Active training course? Where do you want us to start?

D

O YOU know how to run a
sub-branch meeting?
Does the thought of trying to
recruit new members make you
nervous?
Are the consultation structures
in your school a bit creaky — or
non-existent? Do you need a local
agreement, and would you know how
to write one if you do?
If your answer to any of these
is “No” or even “Not sure,” you’ll
find the knowledge and skills that
you need in our AEU Active training

courses or at one of our other
workshops or forums.
Do you understand the student
resource package — your school’s
budget — and what it means for your
school’s programs next year?
Do you really understand it?
Are you up to speed on OHS issues
and what they mean for industrial
agreements in the workplace?
Do you have your head around the
teacher and ES agreements and how
they operate in your workplace? Did
you know that the default mode of

employment for teachers and ES staff
is ongoing?
Are you confident using
Recruitment Online (ROL) and writing
a job application?
Our courses are there to help
improve your skills and knowledge.
You will come away with the
­confidence to improve your own
situation and support your AEU
colleagues as well.
From our AEU Active two-day
courses and modules, and our new
reps training, our after-work forums,

2/02/1

1 9:5
3

AM

Get A Job events, OHS forums and
more, we’re here to help.
Check the calendar below or find
further information and booking
details at at www.aeuvic.asn.au/
training.
Training notices are also sent out
to sub-branch reps every Wednesday
in our new regular Reps’ Email. Ask
your rep to pass them on. If you
have questions regarding any of
our courses, please phone or email
Rhonda Webley on (03) 9418 4844
rhonda.webley@aeuvic.asn.au. ◆

AEU TRAINING CALENDAR TERM 3, 2011
All courses and conferences are full-day events unless indicated. Upcoming events can be found at www.aeuvic.asn.au/calendar.

Full details of all AEU
training programs,
conferences and events
can be found at
www.aeuvic.asn.au/
training.

EDUCATION SUPPORT

AEU PRINCIPALS

CONFERENCE AND DINNER
August 25...................Langham Hotel
Application writing for principal
positions
July 19.......................AEU Abbotsford
Leadership and managing in the
context of the VGSA
Sep 21.......................AEU Abbotsford

IMES are tough, and many teachers are thinking
of taking a second job. If you are one, be careful
you don’t jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
You need permission from your employer
(ie. the principal, as employer’s representative) to
take another job outside of the DEECD. Permission
will not be granted if that work may create a conflict
of interest.
If you wish to work as a tutor you can’t tutor your
own students. This could fall under the definition of
misconduct: “Improper use of information, or school
or department resources, for private purposes or
personal gain.”
Ministerial Order 199 says an employee must
“avoid any conflict of interest, financial or otherwise,
that might affect, or may be seen to affect, the
performance of the employee’s official duties.
“An employee must not seek, accept or obtain
any financial or other advantage (including gifts,
rewards or benefits) for himself/herself,
his/her family or any other person or organisation

if that advantage does or might compromise the
employee’s integrity” (Clause 11.1.7).
Teachers and their work technically come under
the definition of resources. So check with your
principal before taking that job.
Questions for agencies
We get calls from kindergarten and school
members who are interested in finding work —
or who have found work — through an e­ mployment
agency.
The AEU does not endorse any agencies;
however, we recognise they provide an alternative
that some employers prefer. Agencies primarily
provide CRTs and you can expect them to take a cut
of your daily rate, so check their commission.
Questions you might ask include:
• Do they charge upfront registration fees?
• Do they charge contract fees?
• Do they reimburse police checks or other
expenses?
• Do they provide PD opportunities?
• Do they offer employment and CV advice?

• Do they offer alternative work during
holidays?
• Do they provide full records of employment
activity each year?
• Can they guarantee you work?
It pays to do your research as agencies can
vary in their approach. Be aware that your working
conditions are still governed by our awards and
agreements and not by the agency.
And be sure to check whether the agency has an
exclusivity clause that prevents you from working
independently, or accepting a job without them
being involved or taking a cut.
It’s a long way to the top
A reminder to early childhood teachers that moving
up the pay scale from graduate to accomplished
and on to exemplary teacher status requires
validation. The Vetassess website —
www.vetassess.com.au — comprehensively sets
out the procedure and requirements.
The AEU runs regular workshops to help you —
see www.aeuvic.asn.au/validation. You need to
start the process at least six months before your
incremental anniversary to ensure that validation
(and any pay rise) occurs on time, so start planning
now! ◆

Teachers Eyecare

..ticks all the right boxes!





CMYK

Discounts for Teachers Health Fund members
Bulk-billed eye examinations
Personal and friendly service

Thinking of resigning or retiring?
Talk to us first.
ESSSuper members* – get the facts from the people who run your fund.
Our ESSSuper Member Education Consultants are experts in your fund. They can discuss the range of options
available to you and provide detailed information about your benefits.
This includes preparing free up-to-date estimates of your benefit, which are tailored to your retirement
or resignation planning needs. So you can get the right estimates at the right time.
Don’t let commissions drag your retirement savings down. Beware of planners offering free or low
cost financial planning advice as you may be getting hit with ongoing trailing commissions – even by
planners recommended to you.
ESSSuper can offer its members true commission free – fee for service – financial planning advice
through our partnership with Industry Financial Planning (IFFP)#. This means you only pay for the
advice you need when you need it.

ESS2798_(06/11)_FP_AEU

At ESSSuper, we know that you’ve worked hard for your future. And we’re here to make your super work
harder for you.

Call 1300 655 476 to make a FREE appointment
with one of our Member Education Consultants.
* Members include teachers who commenced employment prior to 1994. If you are not already an ESSSuper member you are not
eligible to join (unless you are a spouse of an existing member).
# IFFP is a division of Industry Fund Services Pty Ltd (ABN 54 007 016 195, AFSL 232 514). ESSSuper is not a representative of IFFP and
receives no commission when making a referral to this service. Neither the Board, nor the Victorian Government, guarantee or endorse any
recommendations made by Industry Fund Financial Planning, or are responsible for the advice and actions of Industry Fund Financial Planning.
Issued by Emergency Services Superannuation Board (ABN 28 161 296 741) as trustee of the Emergency Services Superannuation Scheme
(ABN 89 894 637 037) (ESSSuper).

Proudly serving our members

26

aeu news | june 2011

inside the AEU

New Educators

Safety
MATTERS

NETWORK

Riley Minns Richmond Primary School

Janet Marshall OH&S organiser

A matter of
confidence

From little things …

W

R

A week at the AEU helped one
young teacher take on a leading role
in his school sub-branch.
ITH everything expected of teachers in their initial years it is
easy to become absorbed in the classroom and not give much
thought to the issues that affect our working conditions and our
profession as a whole.
In my first two years of teaching I generally rolled with the
punches when it came to school decisions and rarely voiced my
opinions as I did not feel confident.
But I was recently fortunate to spend a week at the AEU as part
of the Young Member Activist Program. It was a fantastic experience and I am very grateful to my school for letting me have the
week away and to the AEU for giving me a peek at the day-to-day
goings on of our union.
From Mary Bluett to the receptionists at the front desk,
everyone happily gave their time to discuss their roles and the
issues facing our profession.
Since returning to my school I have relished the opportunity to
share my new knowledge. I recently took up the role of sub-branch
president; before my week at the union I was unsure if I had the
knowledge and skills to effectively carry out the role. The thought
of representing staff who have been teaching longer than I have
been alive added to my apprehension.
However, the knowledge I gained from my week substantially
increased my confidence and allowed me to successfully run my
first sub-branch meeting. I also feel I am now an effective member
of our school’s consultative committee.
My advice to other young members is to make sure you remain
informed and up-to-date with what is happening at the union and
with the issues that affect our profession.
I realise that a week at the union is a luxury not afforded to
everyone. But there are other steps you can take.
Make time to read everything the AEU sends you; investigate
current issues by reading commentary from a variety of sources
and become familiar with our agreement. I did not even know what
it looked like before my training.
Having up-to-date knowledge of your rights as an educator and
the issues affecting our profession will increase your confidence
and your value to your school. It is important that as young
teachers we play a leading role in decisions made at school,
regional, state and federal level.
After all, it will be us and not our more experienced colleagues
who will be affected most by these decisions over the next 30 years
of teaching. ◆

The actions we take together can make a
difference — as our resolution on sunscreen
and nanoparticles demonstrated.
ECENTLY, AEU branch council
unanimously passed a resolution that
workplaces use only nanoparticle-free
sunscreen. This has now become federal
AEU policy.
You can find further information about
the concerns that unions and environment
groups have about nanotechnology at
nano.foe.org.au. The full AEU r­ esolution
is available on our website at
www.aeuvic.asn.au/nano or in the
recent newsletters sent to school
members.
The media reports that followed the
resolution showed how the actions of
unionists can resonate and raise public
awareness about important issues that
are rarely discussed.
So what does the resolution mean for
your workplace — how can you put this
policy into practice and send a powerful
message to your community and industry?
To raise awareness, we recommend
that this policy be discussed with
members at a sub-branch meeting
and then a request be made that any
sunscreen supplied in the workplace
be nanoparticle-free, as per the Safe
Sunscreen Guide produced by Friends of
the Earth.
Where the workplace does not supply
sunscreen, we suggest that the school
newsletter or similar be used to inform
parents of the AEU resolution.
In the absence of adequate government regulations it is important that we,
as consumers, employees, educationalists,
parents and unionists, adopt a collective
precautionary approach.
Brodie’s Law and workplace bullies
A series of courageous and decisive
acts by many people and organisations,
including WorkSafe and the Magistrates
Court, saw record OHS penalties awarded

in February last year against those
involved in the persistent and vicious
workplace bullying that led to the death of
Brodie Panlock four years earlier.
Such was the impact and subsequent
outcry over her death that this month saw
the widely publicised Crimes Amendment
(Bullying) Bill 2011 passed in both houses
of the Victorian Parliament.
AEU industrial officer Eddie Johnson
said: “Offenders who commit serious
bullying are now able to be prosecuted
under the stalking provisions of the
Crimes Act and be liable for up to 10
years imprisonment.
“The scope of the stalking provisions
has been broadened to include any
conduct that intentionally causes, or could
reasonably be expected to cause, the
victim to physically harm themselves, or
psychological harm that causes a victim to
engage in suicidal thoughts.”
While we urge workplaces and
WorkSafe to act to prevent and protect
against bullying, the new legislation is a
further deterrent to abhorrent behaviour
in and outside the workplace.
There are calls for the legislation to be
adopted nationally.
Return to Work
AEU kindergarten member Penny Vojtek
is featured in a new WorkSafe clip about
helping injured employees return to work.
Penny tells her story to camera of the
return-to-work process after a shoulder
operation for an injury she suffered
at work at Karobran Kindergarten in
Melbourne’s western suburbs.
It explains the support she got from
her local council employer and doctor to
ease back into part-time work. It’s a good
insight into the return-to-work experience.
Watch the three-minute You Tube clip at
bit.ly/mS1u1R. ◆

TRAVEL INTERNATIONAL
CENTRAL VIETNAM
Comfortable accommodation at new
farmstay retreat in stunning rural setting
at the edge of UNESCO World Heritage
Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park.
Adventure tours run by Australian host.
Website : www.phong-nha-cave.com
Email : phongnhafarmstay@gmail.
com
driveEUROPE
Peugeot Citroen Renault
2011 European specials out NOW
Our 37th year of service to the
European traveller. Email: enquiries@
driveeurope.org (02) 9437 4900

bathrooms,

construction & maintenance
*bathrooms *en suites *new or old
*evaporative cooling &
all home maintenance.
N.E. METRO AREA
Quality work for the right price
with over 18 years industry experience

Census to
set union
agenda
AEU members are encouraged to have
their say in shaping the future of
Australia’s union movement, by taking
part in the largest ever national survey
of workers.
Australia’s two million union
members, acting as one, can achieve
great things, as the campaign to get
rid of WorkChoices showed.
The Working Australia Census will
directly engage with workers around
their priorities.
The survey is open to all workers
in May and June. Every AEU member
taking part in the census is eligible to
win a $1000 prize.
Go to workingaustralia.org.au and
make your voice heard today. ◆

ILZIE on the Murray began as a very
competitive producer of budget bargains, but
the proprietors have more recently edged a little
up-market with their regional collection.
The winery now draws fruit from various
distinguished regions including the Barossa
Valley, Coonawarra, the Adelaide Hills and the
Yarra Valley. The resulting wines amount to an
impressive array of varietal styles true to their
regional origins and are very reasonably priced
between $14 and $16.
To single out one wine from the range is
probably unfair to the others, but the 2010
Yarra Chardonnay is especially enjoyable. Yes,
it’s soft and simple but there’s plenty of fruit
flavour here and, given the modest ask, it
deserves at least a trial tasting.
The Zilzie Regional Collection should be
available through independent liquor stores.
For more detailed information contact Lucien
Dorman at ldorman@zilziewines.com.au.
The following recent releases
are also highly recommended:
PETER LEHMAN CLASSIC RIESLING
2010 ($12): An excellent example
of Barossa regional riesling
featuring typical floral and citrus
aromas and a fresh, lively, juicy
palate. Arguably the best of its
varietal style under $15 in the
country.
BOBBY DAZZLER SHIRAZ 2008
($15–$19): Produced by Adelaide
company Journeys End using the
expert services of McLaren Vale winemaker
Ben Riggs, the Dazzler is chock full of blackberry flavour laced with hints of plum and
licorice. Love the label; love the wine even more
sales@journeysendvineyards.com.au.
HOLLICK STOCK ROUTE SHIRAZ CABERNET 2008
($19): A perfectly poised blend made from
Coonawarra and Wrattonbully material holding
sweet and savoury flavours within a modest
structure. mel@hollick.com.
WOODSTOCK SHIRAZ 2009 ($22): McLaren
Vale shiraz at its best and at a surprisingly
­reasonable ask. There are plenty of shiraz reds
on the market at twice the price that are well
short of this class. Phone (08) 8383 0156. ◆

Winter warmer
H

ERE we are in the depths of
winter. The season of report
writing, mid-year exams and an
overwhelming suspicion that every
day has become an identical replica
of the one before.
Ah, the joys of the cold and
blustery terms at school where
students traipse from classroom
to classroom in an interesting
array of clothes, some of them
uniform, many of them not, and
hunker together along the walls of
corridors, frantically texting their
friends who are sitting in adjacent
corridors. Not even dim sim day
at the canteen offers enough
temptation to lure them from their
sanctuary.
Instead of racing home to make
a start on reports, I focus on
what’s for dinner, what’s to drink
with dinner and how warm the
lounge room is. The mornings are
also proving a challenge — what
is the shortest amount of time I can possibly
get ready in? Every morning I manage to break
my previous day’s record. The marking pile
continues to grow.
“So, who’s finished their reports?” asks
Louise, the office over-achiever. Her question is
met with astonished stares all round.
“Are they due in this week?” I ask, clearly
flustered at the prospect of a few rushed
evenings bonding with my Education Departmentissue laptop.
“In three weeks,” she says. “I just like to
get on top of things and start planning for next
term.”
Other office dwellers return to their coffee
mugs and essay marking.
Everyone knows a Louise. The teacher who
has her next week’s worth of photocopying done
by the time she leaves the school grounds on
Friday and tackles report-writing season like
a competitor on The Amazing Race — fast,
furious and with little interest in her competitors’
wellbeing.
She takes extensive notes in staff meetings,
files all important documents in a timely manner
and generally looks unflustered by the daily ebbs
and flows of the school environment.

How does she do it? Does she start every day
with a two-hour yoga session?
“Miss, have you marked our essays yet?”
“Almost. They are the next thing on my rather
extensive to-do list.” Well, they’re about sixth —
right after, start reports, set my Year 7s a test,
mark the other class’s essays, buy a jumper and
pay the electricity bill.
The staff meeting focuses on our new,
whizz-bang reporting system that is continually
crashing and creating tension and stress. Our
tired old system worked quite well.
“It is important that you are all organised and
starting to put your reports onto the system,”
says Brian, the IT guru.
“Yeah, so that when you have to redo them
after your computer crashes you can still meet
the deadline,” whispers Trish, an art teacher who
has more than 200 reports to write.
I look at Louise and decide that next
semester I will start my reports at the same time
she does. And start my day with a two-hour yoga
session. ◆
Comedian and teacher Christina Adams gets dressed
under her doona every year from June 8 to October 21.

www.aeuvic.asn.au

29

culture

Spaghetti LOOPS
The Music Cubby will inspire even the most musically challenged.
Cynthia Karena AEU News

I

ART of the
Melbourne
International
The Liverpool Goalie
Film Festival,
Next Gen films
is billed as “a
program of
intelligent and stimulating cinema for
students”. All have free study guides
written by the Australian Teachers
Of Media.
Films at this year’s festival include
Africa United, where three young
children travel across Africa to
audition for the 2010 soccer World
Cup opening ceremony. It gives us a
taste of the dreams — and realities
(AIDS orphans, child soldiers,
refugee camps) — of Africa.
The Liverpool Goalie and

30

aeu news | june 2011

MIFF runs from July 21 to August 7. Find
out more at miff.com.au/nextgen.

Book and CD retail for $37.50 or
$29.99 to TLN member schools.
Order at www.tln.org.au

BLAME
Dir: Michael Henry
Rated M
Released June 16
EACHERS be
warned: Blame is
not for the fainthearted. When five young people
invade the country house of music
teacher (Damian de Montemas),
their motives are a mystery but their
­intentions are clear.
Amateurish but methodical, as
the group drive away it appears its
operation was a success — until
they realise someone’s left his phone
behind, and things start to unravel.
First-time writer-director Michael
Henry makes the most of a sparse
music score, isolated location and
solid performances (Sophie Lowe’s
deadpan cruelty is particularly
­unsettling) to create a tense,
compact thriller.
His otherwise well-crafted script
falters a little in the second act,
perhaps missing an opportunity for
a more sophisticated look at the
themes, but shifting alliances and a
series of fresh revelations keep this
slow-burner suspenseful to the end.
— Rachel Power

T

Jerry Speiser

Jerry Speiser

P

animation The Ugly Duckling explore
themes of bullying, acceptance and
overcoming fears; while Winter’s
Daughter has a young girl determined to track down her biological
father.
Winner of the Children’s Jury
Award at
the Montreal
International
Children’s Film
Festival, On the
Sly becomes
a Girl’s Own
adventure when
a six-year-old
disappears into
the forest to test her theory that she
is invisible to her parents.
Two documentaries not in the Next
Gen program are worth mentioning.
I Am Eleven talks to 11-year-olds all
over the world about what it is like to
be 11; and The Black Power Mixtape
1967–1975 looks at the politics of
the US Black Power movement. ◆
— Cynthia Karena

handbook

Sarah Cowan,

Sarah Cowan,

Africa United

Barry Carozzi,
Barry Carozzi,

MIFF 2011 — Next Gen

“I’ve been writing and developing these songs
for a long time. I initially wrote several of the songs
for my daughter when she was in kindergarten and
primary school.
“We also trialled and developed the songs at
song-writing camps. We asked kids what it means to
have a bad day — “When I have a pimple” — or
When they’re having a good day — “It’s sunny”. All
the songs have been developed and workshopped
with kids.”
Last year Carozzi tested songs with two or three
teachers. One, “The Echo Song”, had kids “spontaneously singing and doing the actions”.
The Music Cubby is designed to be a joyful book
that students will love.Making
the Music cu
music has never been easier. ◆
bby
a teaching
the music cubby

F YOU are a primary school teacher with no
expertise or skills in teaching music, then this is a
book for you.
The Music Cubby provides a CD of songs with
lesson ideas and activities and it is fun to use. You,
too, will want to make a music shaker with beans
and spaghetti and join in the karaoke sessions.
“A teacher doesn’t have to know anything about
the music,” says Jerry Speiser, former drummer
of rock band Men at Work, who produced and
arranged the songs.
“They can just put on the CD and ask questions
(suggestions provided). For example, what do you
feel when you hear this music? What’s the first
instrument you can hear?”
Published by the AEU’s PD unit, Teacher
Learning Network, The Music Cubby is designed for
early years and primary teachers. Musical terms
are explained and the handbook explores creating

sounds, beat and percussion, writing lyrics and
aspects of music production. Fun sound effects for
the songs include duck noises, alarms, screams, a
dentist’s drill and breaking glass.
“The Music Cubby creates an area in the
classroom that is a music cubby, where kids can
have a few instruments and muck around,” Speiser
says. “One song has a make-a-shaker activity with a
can with beans and spaghetti to play with the song.”
Each song includes an explanation of how it was
developed, giving teachers interesting insights into
how music can be created that can be shared and
discussed with students.
“The idea is for kids to learn the songs and sing
along, do performances or write their own songs
or use the karaoke as backing tracks,” says Barry
Carozzi, songwriter, Warrandyte High School English
teacher and AEU member.
Carozzi came up with the idea for the handbook
when teachers at his daughter’s primary school told
him they did not feel confident teaching music.

press
3

press

SPECIAL OFFER:

T

HE Melbourne Theatre Company is
offering discounted tickets for AEU
members to its upcoming production,
“The Joy of Text”.
Robert Reid’s new satire set in
a high school explores themes of
invention and identity.
Teacher Ami is in her 30s, while
Diane is five years from retirement.
Steve, the new acting principal, is
ambitious but out of his depth. Danny,
a brilliant but troubled student, has a
talent for creative licence and a bent
for mischief.
Reid says the generational gaps
reveal the characters’ attitudes to the
issues under scrutiny.
Book online using the promo code
JOY and receive A-Reserve tickets for
only $72.
This offer is valid for Monday
to Thursday performances only
when booked online at
www.mtc.com.au/tickets.
Where: t he Arts Centre,
Fairfax Studio
Dates: 10 June to 23 July

AEU NEWS is giving members the opportunity to win a variety of Australian resources for their school
libraries from our good friends at ABC Books, Text Publishing, Allen & Unwin and Ford Street Publishing.
To enter, simply email us at giveaways@aeuvic.asn.au by 10am Tuesday, July 19, 2011.
Include your name and school or workplace. Write “Win Teaching Resources” in the subject line.
Prizes will be sent directly to the winner’s school or workplace with a special inscription recognising the winner. Good luck!

The Byron Journals by Daniel Ducrou
ANDREW and his mate Benny have finished school and are heading for the holiday of their lives in
Byron Bay. They are not sure what they’re looking forward to most: the surf, the girls, the music, the
partying or just being away from Adelaide. The Byron Journals is an exciting debut novel by a fresh
new voice in Australian literature. It takes a clear-eyed look at the desire to escape your past and
the dangers of running headlong into your future.
Text Publishing, RRP $19.95
Snake and Lizard by Joy Cowley and Gavin Bishop
TWO very different creatures learn the give-and-take of sharing a house in these warm and
funny stories. As they approach life’s little adventures they begin to see past their differences
and become firm friends.
Text Publishing, RRP $19.95
The Paradise Trap by Catherine Jinks
IT’S a wild, exhilirating ride that will lead Marcus straight to oblivion unless he can escape the
trap that’s been laid for him.
Allen & Unwin, RRP $15.99

Cheeky Monkey by Andrew Daddo
and illustrated by Emma Quay
FROM the team who created the
award-winning Good Night, Me
comes this captivating picture book.
The delightful and warm illustrations
of a family moving through their day
bring to life all the funny and silly
names we call our children: cheeky
monkey, lucky duck, sweet pea, silly
billy and more.
ABC Books, RRP $14.99

Changing Yesterday by Sean McMullen
IT’S 1901, and Battle Commander Liore has travelled back in time to stop a war that will rage for over
a hundred years. But time itself is against her. Whenever she changes history, a new beginning to the
war emerges and the world once again teeters on the brink of disaster.
Barry the Bag has stolen Liore’s plasma rifle, the most dangerous weapon in the world. Can anything
prevent Liore from risking the world’s future for the sake of revenge?
Ford Street, RRP $19.95

mecu Limited ABN 21 087 651 607 • AFSL/ACL 238431 Terms, conditions, fees and charges apply. Loans subject to normal lending criteria and approval. *The comparison rate is based on a secured loan
of $150,000 for 25 years. Warning: This comparison rate is true only for the examples given, and may not include all fees and charges. Different terms, fees or other loan amounts might result in a different
comparison rate. Interest rates expressed as annual percentage rates. Variable rates correct as at 1 June 2011, however, are subject to change at any time. Check mecu.com.au for the latest rates.